One of the earlier shows of Simon & Garfunkel in the United States was the on March 12th 1966. As part of the Carnival Festival the duo was billed together with Jonny & The Hurricanes in the Marquette Gymnasium:
The Forest Hills Festival was run over more days in a row. In 1966 Simon & Garfunkel were already part of this festival too, together with The Mama’s & Papa’s:
In 1967 they would be playing the Festival again:
And in January of 1968 they would fill New York’s Carnegie Hall as headliners:
Most of these items were sold or offered on eBay recently.
Paul Simon - 'Time it was...it was' 
I was there that day in Marquette, 3-12-1996, when Simon and Garfunkle asked us if they could use our keyboards when they went on stage. Johnny and the Hurricanes (I played lead guitar for them) has a very distinct sound set up on that organ so our leader said, “NO !” Then they asked to use our drums and again the same answer. Too many times our stage instruments were messed up by others and we just could not afford to let that happen here. Besides, we had never even heard of these guys ! To my surprise the students, and they numbered about 800 to 1K, were there to hear these guys, more than us ! When we left that afternoon we still did not know who they were. That’s how early their debut date was.
What nice story. Thank you for sharing it here. Would S&G have been wth a backing band? It is said the musicians of The Cyrkle were their backing band on stage in the early days, but I cannot find any shred of evidence so to speak, because never mentioned in a review from those days. Johnny & The Hurricanes have such a long history. Again, thanks!
I don’t remember their band at all. They had different dressing rooms and I think we had to move on to our next gig asap. I have a vivid memory of being asked to make an announcement, about an illegally parked car, to the entire crowd before going on stage. Nobody would volunteer to do it so I stepped up. This was during a bad era of Vietnam protests and colleges were at the helm of a movement to stop the nonsense going on over there. All of the students were seated on the arena floor. I said, ” May I have your attention ? “… My voice thundered through the massive speakers and echoed all ’round. Then I proceeded, ” Please stand for the ‘Pledge of allegiance to the American Flag ! “……… Dead silence and not one person moved. Not one… Then I told them calmly, the real message.
Thanks again. Must have been an awkward time too, just to say the least.
Well I added a picture from the Marquette University 1966 Hilltop Yearbook to a new post on the front of the blog.
“Very nice… I know there was a thing going on for them because of their German-Jewish collaboration. It was a nice thought but it seems to have disintegrated in the end. The crowds and record sales urged them to keep up the good work together, for all of our sake… I loved their songs and very often played some of them in my solo appearances later on… Thanks for your kind words and congrats on your WordPress pages.”