BOTH of our countries may indeed be in the process of collapse, as our American host noted with rather joking cynicism shortly after taking the stage, but there will be many who are cheered by the fact we are in the company of "the same old neurotic
Artie Garfunkel".
Wearing the ensemble of middle-aged urban bohemia – shirt, tie, waistcoat and blue jeans – adopting a rather fidgety hip-swinging dance whenever his pianist is playing a solo, and cooing somewhat sugary homespun anecdotes about his new son, Garfunkel is a poster boy for safe, polite and entirely unthreatening pop musical elder statesmanship.
Although, of course, you don't get to the age of 66 – chalking up substantial musical activity over the last five decades – without having something special going for you, and Garfunkel's voice still soothes like a feather pillow or a scented candle infusing the atmosphere. The notion of middle-class security such images invoke isn't too far off the mark, because the singer is clearly a favourite of mums and dads across the land.
When, for example, he tingles the spine with a stunning Bridge Over Troubled Water or steps out of his more recent oeuvre's rather easy-going third gear for an energised Mrs Robinson, the worthiness of his still-enduring musical legacy is laid bare. It also helps that he frequently name-checks "my dear friend Paul Simon", without whose composition of other highlights like The Boxer, Scarborough Fair and The Sound of Silence, Garfunkel wouldn't be in this position. Such inoffensive graciousness typified the show.
The full article contains 267 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
