Paul Simon shows his generous side at Outside Lands.
The 12th annual Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival came to a close Sunday with a classic story.
It starred a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer many locals probably thought they’d never get to see perform in the Bay Area — or, perhaps, anywhere else — again. Yet there he was onstage, delivering a two-hour set of mostly classics and collecting not a penny for his efforts.
The legend in question was none other than Paul Simon, who was donating his paycheck from headlining Sunday and wrapping up the three-day festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park to local environmental nonprofits.
And, of course, what makes this story all that much sweeter is that nobody was expecting to see Simon’s name in the festival lineup when it was announced in March. That’s because he previously announced that he was retiring from the road in 2018, after conducting a farewell tour that stopped at Oracle Arena in
Oakland.
But Simon, 77, is still doing a gig here and there to raise money for charities. For example, he’s performing two nights in Maui this week in support of biodiversity conservation.
Simon’s fee for playing Outside Lands was not announced, but industry insiders say headliners for these A-List festivals are often paid in the seven-figure range. And all that money is going to the San Francisco Parks Alliance and Friends of the Urban Forest.
The two-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who was first enshrined as one half of Simon and Garfunkel in 1990 and then as a solo artist in 2001, warmed up for the big Outside Lands set by performing an intimate popup show at the Fox Theater
in Oakland on Friday. That was probably a wise move, given that he hadn’t played a full public gig in nearly 11 months and was likely more than a little rusty.
As it turned out, Simon sounded strong at Outside Lands as he led his versatile band through 21 songs in around two hours. Highlights included “Late in the Evening” (which opened the show), “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” the spirited double-shot of “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” and “You Can Call Me Al” that ended the main set, and the collaboration with the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir on “The Boxer” that came during the fivesong encore.
Of course, it’s easy to quibble about a set list that included mediocre solo material such as “Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War,” “Dazzling Blue” and — ugh — “Wristband” while limiting the number of Simon
and Garfunkel classics to just three (“Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “The Boxer” and “The Sound of Silence”).
Yet the mere fact that Simon was there on stage outweighed any negatives.
Simon closed out a day that also featured performances by Kacey Musgraves, Leon Bridges, Bebe Rexha and Toro y Moi, among others. Other top acts who performed earlier in the three-day festival included Childish Gambino, Twenty One Pilots, Lauren Daigle, Ella Mai, Counting Crows, Flume, Hozier and Lil Wayne.
Here’s the Paul Simon set list:
1. “Late in the Evening”
2. “The Boy in the Bubble”
3. “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”
4. “Dazzling Blue”
5. “That Was Your Mother”
6. “Mother and Child Reunion”
7. “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”
8. Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War”
9. “Can’t Run But”
10. “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
11. “The Obvious Child”
12. “Wristband”
13. “Spirit Voices”
14. “The Cool, Cool River”
15. “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes”
16. “You Can Call Me Al” Encore:
17. “Graceland”
18. “Still Crazy After All These Years”
19. “The Boxer”
20. “American Tune”
21. “The Sound of Silence”