Paul Simon, Just Like Old Times in Montauk
In a way, history repeated itself on Saturday as a magic night unfolded at Montauk Point. The musician Paul Simon, who more than 30 years ago built a house on the bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean not too far away, performed four songs before an ecstatic crowd at Montauk Music Festival Rocks the Lighthouse, a late-summer fund-raiser for the 222-year-old structure and its devoted owner and caretaker, the Montauk Historical Society.
As a nearly full moon set the stage, the surprise appearance by Mr. Simon, whose “Homeward Bound — The Farewell Tour” will conclude at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens on Sept. 22, made for “a pretty epic night” in the words of Jasper Conroy, drummer with the Montauk Project, which backed Mr. Simon.
The musician, spry at 76, was clearly enjoying himself, surrounded by the Montauk Project’s Josh LeClerc, Leander Drake, and Mr. Conroy, along with other musicians appearing at the one-day festival. The group performed his classics “Late in the Evening,” “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” and “You Can Call Me Al.”
The evening recalled the historical August 1990 concert at Deep Hollow Ranch, a fund-raiser to keep the lighthouse from falling victim to erosion and toppling into the sea. He would go on to perform several more Back at the Ranch fund-raisers through the 1990s to benefit the lighthouse and other causes, helping to bring A-list stars to the lineup, including Billy Joel, the Allman Brothers Band, James Brown, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, and Jimmy Buffett. On the stage on Saturday, with the ocean as a backdrop and ticketholders sitting on chairs and blankets in a natural amphitheater on the north side of the lighthouse, Mr. Simon remembered those concerts of years ago.
Mr. Conroy said that early this month, he and Mr. Simon, whom he has known for a few years, were “talking about music and retirement, the small, intimate nature of Montauk, how special a place it is.” Mr. Simon volunteered to make a guest appearance at the fund-raiser, he said.
The plan was kept under wraps until Friday. “If the secret had gotten out,” Mr. Conroy said, “it would have been, who knows how many thousand people there.”
By last Thursday night, “Jasper had rehearsed with him and said it’s okay to leak it by word of mouth,” said Kenny Giustino, the founder of the annual Montauk Music Festival, which happens in May. Anyone let in on the secret was given strict instructions, he said: no Facebook, no social media. Through word of mouth alone, “we doubled the sales, went from 500 to 1,000 tickets. It worked out perfectly for what we were able to handle.” In the end, around 1,200 people were on hand, he said.
“It kept it intimate, personal, very much about the community,” Mr. Conroy added. “I think that was a beautiful thing.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Giustino was awaiting receipts from food and beverage sales from the Montauk Friends of Erin and the John’s Drive-inG ice cream truck, but predicted that the event would raise around $20,000.
In April, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office announced that the roughly 1,000-foot-long rock revetment protecting the lighthouse would be reconstructed to withstand ongoing erosion and extreme weather events. The federal Army Corps of Engineers will oversee its reconstruction, funded by a Hurricane Sandy relief bill approved by Congress in 2013 and by the state.
“They’ll build it, but the Montauk Historical Society has the task of maintaining it,” Mr. Giustino said of the revetment and lighthouse. “You can imagine what would be needed,” he said, to maintain the lighthouse, a national historic landmark, as well as to decorate it with holiday lights, an annual event that was scuttled by a budgetary shortfall in 2016, but returned last year.
The historical society welcomes some 100,000 visitors to the lighthouse every year, Joe Gaviola, the new keeper of the light, told the East Hampton Town Board last week. Maintaining the structure, offering tours, acquiring artifacts, and paying docents are among the expenses in an annual budget that exceeds $1.5 million, he said.
The concert “was a lot of work,” Mr. Giustino said, “but once we hit Saturday the whole thing was such a delight. It couldn’t have gone any better.” Performing in addition to Mr. Simon and the Montauk Project were Kate Usher and the Sturdy Souls, Tuatha Dea, and Jessica Lynn, a country singer who was to be the headliner.
“Everybody was happy, it was a pretty spectacular night,” Mr. Conroy said. “The Montauk Project, a local band, getting to back Paul Simon at the lighthouse — it doesn’t get any better than that.”