The Concert in Central Park "Late in the Evening". Ongoing personal tensions between the duo led them to decide against a permanent reunion, despite the success of the concert and a subsequent world tour. The album and a film were released the year after the concert. Simon and Garfunkel's performance was praised by music critics and the album was commercially successful; it peaked at number six on the "Billboard" 200 album charts and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The video recordings were initially broadcast on HBO, and were subsequently made available on Laserdisc, CED, VHS and DVD. New
The Concert in Central Park the backing band was "one of the finest groups of musicians ever to play together at a New York rock concert", and the rearrangements of Simon's solo material were improvements over the originals. Despite the risks in performing so many acoustic ballads in an open-air concert on a cool night, the songs "were beautifully articulated, in near-perfect harmony." An October 1981 review in "Rolling Stone" called the concert "one of the finest performances of [1981]", one that "vividly recaptured another time, an era when well-crafted, melodic pop bore meanings that stretched beyond the musical sphere and into the realms of