I am a huge life long Paul Simon fan. Like Pete Seeger I grew up on him. Well, a bit different. Pete Seeger was the music of my childhood and my conscience. Paul Simon was my teenage response to vapid pop music (though I did listen to a lot of that as a teenager). He writes about things that matter and writes about them so eloquently, I swoon. I came to him through folk music and then he introduced me to music from all over the world.

One of my few claim to coolness: I have seen Paul Simon in concert six times including last Wednesday.

This concert was a double-bill: Paul Simon and Sting. It was wonderful. I went with John, Julia, and Dan and many other people in the over 45 age bracket, heck the over 65 bracket. I'm a second generation Simon fan. There were plenty of people there, struggling up the stairs, who went all the way back.

I hadn't actually been looking forward to the Sting portion but realized I had a lot of connection to Police/Sting music, loved his showmanship, and particularly loved his singing with Simon or talking about how much he respected Simon. Instead of being offended or put off when he sang some of Simon's verses, I felt the love.

The combined bands were amazing. Electric violin, French horn, African drums, accordion, three drum sets--it was so rich and a privilege to be in the presence of virtuosos.

Well, that's really how I felt about the whole night; I was in the presence of genius. I didn't find any of the songs stale or dated. They managed to sing songs of youth like "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" without seeming ridiculous and songs of aging like "Still Crazy After All These Years" without seeming morose.

They played for nearly three hours. No warm up band. I really felt I got two great concerts for the price of . . .well, let's not get into the huge price. My only complaint is the whole chair thing. I don't need mood altering drugs to reach a state of transcendence, but I do need to dance. But, I'm so polite, I don't want to block the view of my neighbors. I got up and danced on a few songs and we all got up for the last set. I'm so glad I went.