Paul Simon worked like a man who had never decided the job was beneath him. During soundcheck he would come onto the stage and walk the line of monitors one by one, leaning toward each box and listening to what it threw back.
I stood off to the side and watched the man who wrote “The Boxer” check our monitors with us. I understood, dimly, that I was seeing the difference between a person who performs the work and a person who does the work.
His band gave us the best lesson in restraint anybody ever handed us. The stage itself was almost quiet. Small amplifiers were miked into the room. Nobody reached for a part the song had not asked for. Nobody played to be noticed.
I had come up believing that you filled a large room by being large. They filled it by being small and letting the building do the rest. Each musician added the one thing the song needed and got out of the way. The sum of all that getting out of the way was the fullest and most patient sound I had ever stood beside.
I was too young to understand all of it then. I have understood more of it every year since.
