As Paul Simon takes his final bow, thousands of voices join in singing the words of a prophet

Paul Simon emerged from the darkness to say hello to old friends in Vancouver for one last time.

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“This is our first show of what we call our final tour,” Simon, 76, said, a couple of songs in to the opening gig of his Homeward Bound farewell tour on Wednesday.

“You know I have to say this: I lied about the ‘final.’ I was just trying to raise the ticket prices,” he joked to wild applause.

No, no, he corrected himself: This is it. Although “I don’t know what the ‘it’ is,” he added.

Is it the final iteration of these songs? Will they remain frozen after this tour? “No!” the crowd protested.

Farewells are hard and beautiful and heightened. When you are conscious that you are about to experience something for the last time (even if it happens to be your first time) that comes with an inevitable intensity.

So when you walk into a concert hall – or a hockey arena – and you know this will be the final time you will be able to see this performer whose music has accompanied you through life in one way or another, well that’s going to be a powerful experience.

And when that performer is Paul Simon, with his ever-transforming decades-long career, his superb artistry and cool professionalism – well, prepare for the show of a lifetime. Even if it has the odd bumpy moment, this is a legend taking his final bow.

Simon started his farewell tour in Canada with America and then slipped into Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover. He promised to play hits and favourites. The stage was busy with more than a dozen musicians, including a string section and a horn section. The audience spent less time on its sensibly-shod feet than one might have hoped (demographics) but they were into it, based on the extreme head-bobbing I witnessed, and the enthusiastic singing along.

They lie-lie-lie’d to The Boxer, punctuated Homeward Bound by belting out “Home!” and boogied to Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard. (Although as I write this I’m still in mourning that Kodachrome did not make the set list.)

There was a fair bit of Simon & Garfunkel material – although pointedly no references to Art Garfunkel, Simon’s former collaborator with whom he has had an ongoing, often public dispute.

A surprise highlight of the night was the performance of two songs Simon said he couldn’t recall having played live before, Rene and Georgette Magritte with their Dog After the War, and Can’t Run But. For these two numbers, he was accompanied by the extraordinary sextet chamber ensemble yMusic, forming an intimate semi-circle around him.

Simon explained to the audience how he came up with the Rene and Georgette title: He was at Joan Baez’s house and she took a phone call. To pass the time, he picked up a book of artist Rene Magritte’s paintings and found the photograph with the caption that became his song lyric, and title.

Telling this story from the stage, Simon paused in the middle of a sentence. It appeared (from my seat far, far from the stage) that an audience member tried to help by yelling out the word Simon seemed to be searching for.

“They say as you get older, your memory goes, but you know what? I remember the first time I was ever in this arena,” Simon responded, then paused for wild cheers – and effect. “We were playing the Boston Bruins,” he deadpanned.

Simon got political toward the end of the evening, talking about the environmental crisis facing the planet and the Half-Earth Project he supports. (“Am I allowed to talk this much?” he asked.)

The finality of the experience added a weighty significance to so many songs and lyrics. Still Crazy After All These Years, Late in the Evening, Homeward Bound. And especially to the final song of the night: The Sound of Silence, delivered by Simon alone on the stage with his guitar.

This song, which launched Simon & Garfunkel into the stratosphere in the 1960s, left a halo around the evening. Here were thousands of voices sharing this song, singing the words of a prophet. After Simon left the stage and the cheering of the crowd subsided, we shuffled out of the building and made our way home, eventually to silence. But the vision still remains, the music seeping through.

Paul Simon plays the Air Canada Centre in Toronto June 12 and the Bell Centre in Montreal June 13.​