The Simon & Garfunkel Story returns to eastern Idaho
Published at | Updated at
IDAHO FALLS — The Simon & Garfunkel Story is launching a new tour season and the first stop is Friday night at the Colonial Theater in downtown Idaho Falls.
The show is back by popular demand and tells the story of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, one of the most iconic musical duos in history. Taylor Bloom and Benjamin Cooley, both 24-years-old and from New York City, play Simon and Garfunkel and are joined on stage by a full band.
“Behind us during the show, there’s video footage that’s played that helps to not only tell the story of Paul’s and Art’s lives, but also what was going on in the world because a lot of what was happening in the world at the time influenced the songwriting that was taking place,” Bloom tells EastIdahoNews.com.
The original Simon and Garfunkel knew each other since grade school and debuted as a duo in 1964. They split at the peak of their career six years later.
The Simon & Garfunkel Story features all their hits, including ‘Mrs Robinson’, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, ‘Homeward Bound’, ‘Scarborough Fair’, ‘The Boxer’, ‘The Sound Of Silence’ and more.
“In between the songs, there’s little, what our director calls “chatty bits,” where we kind of break character and just talk to the audience in a very normal way,” Cooley says.
While Cooley and Bloom play the parts of the famous duo, they don’t consider themselves cover artists or a tribute band. They’ve studied the original Simon and Garfunkel, their songs and what made them successful.
“I didn’t realize (‘The Sound of Silence’) was like the first song Paul Simon wrote,” Bloom says. “He had been playing guitar and writing little ditties before that but apparently he locked himself in the bathroom one day and wrote this song at the age of 17 or something. That kind of blew me away when I found that out.”
Even if you aren’t a Simon and Garfunkel fan, the show is produced for people who “like live music and like it played well,” Bloom says. The production will be on the road in the United States and Canada until March as performers share the story of musicians who changed the world.
“We’re playing some of the most timeless pop music that’s been written in the last 100 years,” Bloom says. “Apart from that, it’s music that you can’t hear live performed with the same attention to the detail anymore.”
The Simon & Garfunkel Story begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Colonial Theater. Tickets can be purchased here.