Paul Simon is coming back to Glasgow — and he is bringing the whole songbook with him.
The 84-year-old American songwriter will play two nights at the SEC Armadillo on Saturday 9 May and Sunday 10 May 2026, the European leg of his A Quiet Celebration tour. Doors open at 6.30pm on both evenings.
The practical bit
Tickets are on sale now via the SEC and Ticketmaster, priced from £99 to £172.75 including admin fee (fulfilment extra), with a six-ticket limit per person. The shows are open to over-8s only, and under-16s must be accompanied by an adult aged 18 or over.
The SEC has flagged that 9 and 10 May will be busy nights on the Clydeside campus, with multiple events on at once. The venue is encouraging fans to arrive early, use the free drop-off and pick-up zone from 5.30pm, and plan their journey home in advance.
Why these shows matter
Simon does not really tour any more. After 2018's Homeward Bound — The Farewell Tour, many assumed that was that. Then came Seven Psalms, the Grammy-nominated 33-minute suite released in 2023, and a quiet rethink. A Quiet Celebration — built around that piece and his back catalogue — has been picking up rave notices across North America, with Rolling Stone calling it "a victory lap for one of the greatest songwriters of the past century."
The format is unusual. The show opens with Seven Psalms performed in full on entirely acoustic instruments — a hush-and-listen piece the Guardian described as "a masterful suite". After a short interval, Simon and a 10-piece band move into the hits and deep cuts, "lovingly and newly arranged specifically for this tour", according to the SEC.
That band is not a pickup ensemble. It includes long-time collaborator Bakithi Kumalo on bass — the player whose fretless lines defined Graceland — alongside legendary session drummer Steve Gadd, plus viola, cello and flute. Glasgow audiences will hear You Can Call Me Al the way You Can Call Me Al deserves to be heard.
Glasgow and Paul Simon
Glasgow has a long love affair with Simon's music, from the Simon and Garfunkel years through Graceland's genre-redefining run in the late 1980s. He last played the SSE Hydro in 2018, and before that the SECC in 2011. The Armadillo, with its 3,000 capacity, is a noticeably more intimate room — by design.
The European tour opened in Prague on 9 April and wraps in Dublin on 20 May, making the Glasgow dates among the final stops of a run that may well prove to be a genuine farewell.
For anyone who has ever sung along to The Boxer, Bridge Over Troubled Water or The Boy in the Bubble, two nights in May are circled on the calendar for a reason.
Paul Simon, SEC Armadillo, Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 May 2026. Doors 6.30pm. Tickets via sec.co.uk.
