10-27-2022 Howard Mag - Flipbook - Page 82
RETRO HOCO
BY MIKE KLINGAMAN Howard Magazine
Simon & Garfunkel at Laurel Park
Nearly 40,000 people packed the racetrack to hear the duo
Their music first struck a chord in the 1960s, cutting
through the chaos with poetic and penetrating commentaries
on the times. So in 1983, when Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel
played Laurel Park as part of an international reunion tour,
nearly 40,000 people flocked to the folk-rock concert to look
back on those turbulent years.
A racetrack may seem an odd venue for a stage show, but
the site drew fans from both Baltimore and Washington and
held nearly four times the crowd that could fit into Merriweather Post Pavilion. (Two years earlier, the duo with 10
Grammy Awards had drawn 500,000 for a free show in New
York’s Central Park).
At Laurel, “the air carried the sweet aromas of marijuana
and manure,” The Evening Sun reported.
At $17.50 a ticket, the turnout was largely white-collar:
“[People] came with lawn chairs and loungers. They had
picnic baskets laden with French bread and warm brie, cold
pasta and chopsticks, white wine and apricot sours,” The Sun
reported. Some arrived three hours early, avoiding the 5-mile
traffic backup that delayed the concert by nearly an hour.
What they got was a two-hour show, 26 songs including
Simon and Garfunkel’s greatest hits, from “I Am A Rock”
and “The Boxer” to “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Mrs.
Robinson.”
At one point, while introducing the song “Slip Slidin’ Away,”
Simon — an avid New York Yankees fan — made note of the
seven-game losing streak by the Orioles, their division rivals.
“Welcome to the American League East,” Simon wisecracked.
(The Orioles recovered and won the 1983 World Series.)
They performed on a stage resembling a drive-in theater,
with a 700-square-foot video screen and an 11-piece band. And
while Simon and Garfunkel proved coldly distant side-byside — they never spoke to each other, per their long-standing
breakup — their voices merged for that peek at the past that
the audience sought.
Fittingly, after two curtain calls, they ended with their signature hit from 1965, “The Sound of Silence,” after which the
mostly middle-aged crowd filed out, homeward bound.
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| Fall 2022 | howardmagazine.com
Art Garfunkel, left, and Paul Simon perform during their free concert
in Central Park in New York City, September 1981. The duo played
Laurel Park as part of an international reunion tour in 1983. AP FILE
PHOTO