Even being quite a Simon and Garfunkel fan, and a keen follower of Paul Simon's solo career, wasn't enough to convince me that Paul Simon could cut it live without "Artie". Sure, I have enough of his solo albums to know that he can still write great songs, but a live Paul Simon solo performance is something I have never been overly interested in seeing. Fortunately, the man surprised me with his ability to put on a good show, and by the time he was really rocking, so was I.

Paul Simon - You're The One: In Concert was filmed at Music Hall Paris Capucines, Theatre De l'Olympia October 30 and 31, 2000 and combines the best of each performance. Everyone on stage appears suitably relaxed and confident, increasingly letting loose as the pace of the show began to build.

The twenty six songs that make up this disc cover "Rhymin' Simon's" entire career, but one or two tunes have a slight reworking, particularly Kodachrome which sounds like it would be right at home on his Graceland album. Speaking of which, the songs from that album hold up very well and are used to pick up the pace of the concert. The 'all-nation' band is very skilled and the range of instruments played constantly surprised me. African drums and percussion, and all manner of wind and string instruments, combine with the more traditional instruments such as guitars and keyboards to provide the show with plenty of variety and differing rhythms. There are a couple of extended drum/percussion solos and while I normally cringe at drum solos, these are quite enjoyable and allow the percussionists their "15 minutes" to strut their stuff.

There are a number of highlights including 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, Late In The Evening and The Boxer. Other Simon and Garfunkel tunes are sprinkled throughout and though each is most enjoyable, there are moments when I was praying Art Garfunkel would walk on unannounced to provide those beautiful harmonies. Sadly, he didn’t show and I was forced to sing the high harmonies myself - it wasn't quite the same.

Tracklisting;

Paul Simon - You're The One: In Concert is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. This is a very good transfer, especially for a concert performance, which tend to be badly affected by the stage lighting favoured by most of today's major performers. Colours are slightly over-saturated and are very bright. Stage lighting, as mentioned, always provides a challenge, and while the blue light that occasionally washes the stage tends to diminish the clarity of the picture, this is essentially a sharp and clean transfer. All other lighting is good and the spotlights really aid clarity in the close ups.

Shadow detail is fair, as are black levels. There are no detectable instances of film artefacts, but there is some very infrequent and hard to detect aliasing. Certain objects on stage reflect the lighting in a way that initially indicated a problem, and while this is mildly distracting, it is not a fault of the transfer.

The layer change is placed between songs at 64:21 and allows minimal disruption.

There are three audio tracks to choose from. The first is Linear PCM stereo which is also the default audio track (why?). The second option is a Dolby Digital 5.1, which has the poorest sound quality of the three audio tracks. Lastly, always my favourite, there is a DTS 5.1 which always fills me with expectation.

Whilst the Linear PCM stereo track is rather good with decent volume and clarity, I found the Dolby Digital 5.1 track to be rather flat and dull, not to mention quieter. It was almost like having cotton wool stuffed in my ears. The top end treble sounds, such as acoustic guitars and cymbals, sound almost muffled.

With these audio tracks sampled, I crossed my fingers for the DTS 5.1 - aaah! This was of a similar volume and clarity of the Linear PCM track, but in full DTS 5.1 glory. This is a good audio presentation. The music of Paul Simon is multi-faceted and the range of instruments and layered vocals requires this kind of clarity and space to impress. The bulk of the music comes from the front speakers with Simon's vocal from the centre. Crowd noise is evenly distributed to the front and back speakers, which also support some of the music track to 'fill out' the sound.

The low-level sounds are well handled by the subwoofer, which gets a solid workout.

There are no audio-sync issues and all vocals and instruments are clear and nicely separated. This is the kind of show that improves with volume especially as the band begins to warm up.

There are no extras as such, but there are subtitles provided (in English) and an audio-enhanced animated main menu. You will need to navigate to the main menu in order to select either of the 5.1 audio tracks. I am still not impressed with DVDs that automatically default to a particular audio track when there are options.

The only other extras are a web link and a DVD-ROM component.

Lastly a small gripe. This is one of those blasted discs that do not let you skip past the introductory warning messages and logos. Am I the only one annoyed by this?

All in all, this is a great performance by one of the most respected singer-songwriters in the world today. With a career that began forty years ago, Paul Simon may no longer be the darling of the hippy movement, or sell as many albums as he once did, but this is no reason to dismiss the man or his work.