The boxer hasn’t left the ring: Paul Simon lights up Red Rocks

Paul Simon has been doing this for a while.

And, yes, he absolutely still has it.  

A man who needs no introduction kicked off his two-night stint at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Friday, June 12, as part of a worldwide tour, just three years after the 84-year-old folk legend suddenly lost around 94% of the hearing in his left ear — but you wouldn’t know. If you were one of the countless singing fans in attendance, all you would know is that the man is still a sonic perfectionist, gently singing through a plethora of newer tunes and timeless classics.

“I guess it’s pretty much everyone’s favorite venue,” he said before starting the show, to thunderous applause. “I’m just grateful to be here.”

Unsurprisingly, the crowd was on the older side, with audience members defining themselves by how many times they had seen Simon or other music legends. All gladly shared past concert experiences as though they were heroic war stories. 

I’m not a Paul Simon fan … well, I wasn’t. Sure, I’m musically aware enough to know a handful of the musician’s immortal hits (with and sans Art Garfunkel), but I never would consider myself a devotee. But after nearly two-and-a-half hours of aural emotion, seeing the man play left me ecstatic.

Simon tore through over two hours of music, starting with his 2023 album, “Seven Psalms.”

That took some fans by surprise, with one lady noting it that it sounded like a funeral march. The entirety of “Seven Psalms,” blended together without breaks as a 33-minute song, felt heavy as it grappled with ever-coming death, tied together by a religious motif that bounced around similes of Simon’s Christianity.

It felt like an elegy — written post-mortem — akin to David Bowie’s Blackstar, an album that released two days before his death.

People in the crowd wondered how he was still coming up with poetry like this, even in his 80s.

In the final track, “Wait,” Simon pleaded for more time on earth while his wife, Edie Brickell, crooned for him to return home to heaven.

Brickell still sounds incredible, too, joining her husband on a handful of tracks throughout the night.

Simon had a farewell tour in 2018, aptly titled “Homeward Bound: The Farewell Tour.” But after overcoming his hearing loss, he decided to get back on the road with this “A Quiet Celebration” iteration. Still, it was hard not to feel like this, too, was another farewell.

But the seemingly solemn goodbyes didn’t sour the entire evening. Fans were pleased when Simon retook the stage with a more relaxed outfit, jumping right into a collection of hits like “Graceland,” “Rewrite” and “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.”

Simon was joined by a collection of mercenary musicians, following along with meticulous habits of the well-known perfectionist. There was no room for error. No room for playing a sour note or wild interpretation.

The entire second half ended up as a singalong, covering a plethora of classics with bits of storytelling here and there. For example, Simon went over the tragedy of Johnny Ace, an up-and-coming musician who accidentally shot and killed himself at age 25, before jumping into “The Late Great Johnny Ace.”

Simon finished up after two encores, taking the stage alone to perform “The Sound of Silence” under the summer moonlight.

It was an intimate, gentle night of storytelling, looking to the uncertain future and enjoying songs that have served as a soundtrack to so many lives over the past 70 years.

I was just happy to be involved.

A recording of the tour, filmed in Seattle, will air on Hulu and Disney+ on June 26.