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After exploring world music in the '80s and tackling an ambitious if ultimately unsuccessful Broadway musical in the '90s, Paul Simon resurfaced in 2000 with a deceptively "modest" studio album. You're the One tabled overarching cultural or narrative agendas to return to Simon's early strengths as an archetypal singer-songwriter, a path followed on this superb video concert, which echoes its studio counterpart's back-to-basics approach while mirroring the impact of those larger-scaled projects. In concert, the newest songs stand alone thematically, yet Simon's long pilgrimage through Third World music now elicits utterly natural, multicultural accents. On songs such as the opening mission statement, "That's Where I Belong," as well as "The Teacher" and "Darling Lorraine," Simon flexes polyrhythmic nuances that measure how completely his music now fuses its familiar folk-rock origins with the more elastic influences gathered from Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. That achievement seems effortless, thanks to his remarkable 11-piece stage band, which likewise reflects Simon's musical diaspora through its multinational makeup. As the show's front man, Simon proves more relaxed and playful than was often the case earlier in his career. Whether illustrating key lyrics with exaggerated hand gestures, or pulling rank with a deadpan delivery of "Old" (his funny, unapologetic look at the other side of the generation gap), Simon radiates authority. The song list manages to capture all of the new album's highlights (especially the brilliant, tragi-comic "Darling Lorraine") with ample room for solid new versions of earlier solo songs and Simon & Garfunkel hits. --Sam Sutherland
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