The Concert in Central Park and a benefit for United Way of Canada Children's Charities at SkyDome in Toronto. Their next performance as a duo was in December 2003, at New York's Madison Square Garden during the Old Friends Tour. This concert was recorded, and released in December 2004 as the album "". Simon & Garfunkel's "Concert in Central Park" raised around $51,000 for Central Park. Benefit concerts by other musicians followed, and helped to raise awareness of the park's state. With donations from the general public and with the help of wealthy benefactors, the park was restored during the 1980s and gained recognition as
Benefit concert performers took part in concerts to raise donations charitable causes, it was also not unusual in the 18th and 19th centuries for musicians to stage performances to raise funds for their own professional work, such as Ludwig van Beethoven's 1808 "Akademie" concert. The modern understanding of a benefit concert is of a large-scale, popular event put on to support a charitable or political cause. In the modern era, the first benefit concert is generally held to be the Concert For Bangladesh, a programme of two events held at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1971, which were organized