Customer Reviews

Paul Simon - Live at the Tower Theatre

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Paul Simon "Live At The Tower Theatre", may be the finest solo Paul Simon concert ever filmed. This is bare bones Simon, with a four piece band, that starred with him in the movie "One Trick Pony". It is actually nice to hear the songs, without the different world music arrangements and caribbean orchestras, that plagued his live shows during the nineties. The band is made up of ex Stuff members Steve Gadd[drums],The late Richard Tee[keyboards and vocals], The late Eric Gale[guitar], and Tony Levin[bass]. These guys crank, and may well have been Paul Simons best band ever assembled. The rockin "Ace In The Hole", is one of several cuts from the much overlooked album 'One Trick Pony", and features Richard Tee sharing vocals with Simon, while pounding his gospel tinged keyboards. Other favorites include, "Late In The Evening", "Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover", "Me And Julio", and "One Trick Pony", to name a few. The sound and picture quality is very good, considering that the show was recorded in 1980. The only negative, is that the concert is a tad short at 55 minutes, but this is all quality, and Paul Simon never sounded better in concert. Paul Simon along with top session men, Steve Gadd, Eric Gale, Richard Tee and Tony Levin, is not to be missed, if you are a fan of vintage Paul Simon.

First of all this is Paul Simon (without Art) at his very best. This was one of his best concert tours ever; with the best band backing him. The Audio on this DVD is a 10.

Now to the other two areas. The Video shot in 1980 is not up to standards. I've seen less grainy prints from decades earlier. Now my biggesr beef. I paid $32.95 + tax Canadian for this DVD. Yes I knew how many tracks were on it when I bought it. However; after watching it and remembering the original concert tour (Toronto Stop) I know there were many more songs performed than 11. No one twisted my arm; but to get those musicians and Simon together was a must. I will cherish it; but boo to whomever put it together. Maybe there was nothing they could do about the video on this one performance; but they could have given us the WHOLE SHOW! I have to leave on a positive note. The playing and the 5.1 sound is fabulous!

This is a DVD of the concert Paul did on 10/7/80 at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia. The backing band is the band from the movie and album One-Trick Pony: Richard Tee (RIP)- organ, Erie Gale (RIP) - guitar, Steve Gadd - drums, Tony Levin - bass, along with a horn section.
The band sounds great. This is probably the best band Paul has toured with, as Paul does not have a 20 piece ensemble of musicians and dancers during this tour. Paul is in great spirits and he interacts with the audience on a couple of occassions, at one point telling an audience member to move on up to the front of the stage if he/she couldn't see well, and saying "I don't know if the theatre allows it but it's OK with me."
Paul looks splendid in his blue Member's Only jacket, and Tony Levin plays regular electric bass (his famous stick bass is noticeably absent). Paul runs through most of his current album "One Trick Pony" and the hits from his first couple of albums. Paul then does a great solo encore of two Simon and Garfunkel tunes.
The only drawback is that the concert is clipped, and has a running time of 53min. I don't know why they didn't release the complete concert. This is a sore point for me, and is really lame.

The set list for the DVD is as follows:
"Me and Julio Down By The School Yard"
"Still Crazy After All These Years"
"Ace In The Hole"
"Something So Right"
"One Trick Pony"
"Jonah"
"50 Ways To Leave Your Lover"
"Late In The Evening"
"American Tune"
"The Boxer" (solo)
"Sounds Of Silence" (solo)

Overall, a decent representation of Paul Simon before he began his "orchestra ensemble" tours. I just wish they would have shown the complete concert.

As a Paul Simon fan, I really enjoyed this DVD, because he played his music in this concert very true to the greatness of the melodies, with all arrangements in very good taste, as opposed to his later tours where his renditions of the music really are kind of out there.

I've never seen a DVD that is almost half as short as advertised. That is totally unacceptable and I don't see how they got away with doing that. If it is made half the price from the original price, I would say that would be a fair exchange.

But that takes nothing away from the good music. Enjoy.

it's a joy to watch this live show.
one of the highlights of this album is definitely: "Late in the evening".
I play/watch that one a dozen times straight.
Great band, it's awesome to see artists enjoy themselves so tremendously on stage. Truly a Top notch band Paul has there.

If you want an excellent Paul Simon DVD this is the one to buy.
OK it is short (only 53 mins not 84 as on the DVD case) but the quality of the music makes it an essential purchase.
The songs are the best from Paul Simons solo albums (at that time), so you get Me And Julio.., American Tune, Still Crazy..., Fifty Ways..., Late in the Evening plus The Boxer and The Sound of Silence as encores. Paul Simon is as always the complete professional and he is helped by having his best ever backing band.
Essentially this is the group Stuff (Gadd, Tee, Gale etc) with a top notch brass section. They are absolutely the best in the business. Late In The Evening is a special highlight for me as I still remember seeing Paul Simon at Hammersmith Odeon in 1980 - this tune, which at the time I had never heard, just knocked me out.
Marvellous stuff!

As a (relatively) young Paul Simon fan, I have only been to see him live since the Graceland world tour. What's a joy with this DVD is to see a first-rate band play Paul Simon's songs in fairly much their original arrangement, to an intimate audience of fans. Each song is exquisitely performed, sometimes a little too polite in the first half but always focusing on the singer and the song. Richard Tee (on keys) in particular is a joy to watch. Although Paul Simon looks nervous in the first half, he relaxes towards the middle and chats to the audience between songs. There have beens some qualms about picture quality and while they may be valid, the performance is of such quality that the concert is fantastic to watch anyway. Much more enjoyable than the DVD of the "You're The One" tour some 20 years later which was filmed for DVD but which I found musically to be very stylised and far too slick. By contrast, this was just five excellent musicians playing terrific songs to an appreciative audience. Buy !!

The disc case states that it is "84 min". Try 52+ minutes. Yep not even an hour long. What there is of it is fine, although the first few songs seemed kind of lifeless, If you want to get a concert with some substance you might want to look elsewhere.

This is the first time this concert has been available on DVD which will please many fans because the VHS was discontinued some years ago and is very hard to find.

The concert was recorded in Philidelphia on 7th October 1980 during the One-Trick Pony tour and features amazing performances of Simon's hits such as 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, Late in The Evening, Me an Julio Down By The Schoolyard as well as Simon and Garfunkel numbers such as The Boxer and The Sound Of Silence.

Simon's band are the band that appear in the One-Trick Pony movie and sound excellent on the lesser known tunes such as One-Trick Pony, Ace in The Hole and Jonah. In fact this video is the only place that these songs are available live.

Simon looks comfortable with the crowd and chats amiably between songs speaking to audience members who call out to him. Someone calls out Happy Birthday to which Simon says "It's not my birthday" which is followed by an exchange about the fact that the guy in the audience would not see Simon on his birthday - so he says "I accept"!

Paul Simon's voice is strong and clear on every song and it is clear why the soundtrack to this concert was widely bootlegged on audio CD in the 1990s.

Pre-order now and enjoy!

a nice performance by Paul; the sound is good for that era and it's Paul Simon so what's not to like?