Simon and Garfunkel tribute act: Bookends

Bookends are two men, one of whom plays a guitar. They acknowledge that they look nothing like Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel; their aim is to recreate the sound. And because of the limitations of a single guitar, they are recreating the sound as frequently heard in the concerts, rather than on the albums. This adds authenticity; it takes S&G back to their original folk-singing roots. This produced a challenge when playing the iconic Bridge Over Troubled Water which was originally a piano-driven piece but their own version was excellent.

Both singers were very good but the guitar player was extraordinarily good. 

Given the limitations of a set lasting two lots of 45 minutes, it is impossible to cover all the great S&G songs.You could do a whole concert just from the tracks on the Bridge Over Troubled Water LP and they didn’t include So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright or Keep the Customer Satisfied or ... Given the name of the group, I was surprised they didn’t cover ‘Bookends’. But they did cover most of the absolute classics and they only played one song I didn’t know (Bleecker Street). There was a fair and representative selection and, of course, having finished without playing The Sound of Silence they had to do an encore including it.

From the stalls it seemed to be a nearly sell-out crowd at the Eastbourne Hippodrome and I think most of the customers were very satisfied.

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God