Simon to perform at Auditorium Sunday

School of Journalism instructor Sarah Neal-Estes saw Paul Simon years ago in Deer Creek, Ind.

She was with her then-boyfriend, her mom and her mom’s partner. Neal-Estes said that was the best concert she has ever seen.

“I mean, you’re 22. You’re going to a concert with your mom,” she said. “We thought it would be fun, but we didn’t expect it to be the best concert ever. He was just so full of
energy.”

Neal-Estes said one of her favorite moments of the concert was when Simon played “You Can Call Me Al.”
“The best part, which I will remember forever, was when they played that song,” she said.

“Everybody sang it all the way through together, and we got to the end, and we stopped, and he said, ‘That was really fun. Let’s do that again,’ and he started the song again, and everyone went crazy. It was just wonderful.”

Simon, of the 1960s folk-rock duo Simon and Garfunkel, has written songs such as “Mrs. Robinson” and “The Sound of Silence.”

He will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the IU Auditorium.

Simon will play various older hits and new tracks from his newest album, “So Beautiful or So What.” The Punch Brothers will open for him.

The singer-songwriter has won various awards and was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2001.
Simon is also the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor.

Junior Sarah Greengross will attend the concert and said she knows a fair amount of students who will also attend.

She said she purchased tickets as soon as she heard they were on sale.

“There’s a lot of nostalgia that comes with his music for me,” Greengross said.

“Whether it be his solo records or Simon and Garfunkel, his music was something that my parents would always play. I remember from a very early age listening to Paul Simon.”

Greengross said Simon is a solo artist whom she admires for his musicality and song writing.

Music professor Glenn Gass talks about both Simon the solo artist and Simon and Garfunkel in his History of Rock and Roll classes.

He said Simon is one of the greatest poets, if not the greatest poet, in rock music.

“I don’t think Paul Simon would mind being called a poet,” Gass said.
Gass said there is no fixed Paul Simon style, and he has a very curious mind when it comes to music.

“He knows his limitations and works well with them. (He) knows what he can and can’t do and does what he does do very well,” Gass said.