Paul Simon played the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam on July 18th 2012. The Dome is a recently built music hall, already famous for its acoustics and great sound. Unfortunately that didn’t work out good for Paul Simon. His voice was hardly heard at all. which was strange because when Hugh Masekela sang there was no problem at all. He did a great version of ‘Stimela’. Frequently you could see musicians make gestures to the sound engineers that could not hear what they were doing themselves on stage, very annoying indeed.
Paul was in great shape! Looking very happy, almost a guest at his own show, giving room to the African players, of which Ladysmith Black Mambazo, ofcourse drew much attention. Their performance was very much enjoyed in Amsterdam.
The show, almost 3 hours long, was played very fast. Not much time between songs.
Here’s a review in NCR Handelsbald of 2012-07-19:
Paul Simon - 'Time it was...it was' 