Simon and Garfunkel plan new tour

The duo reunited on Friday night at the end of a Paul Simon concert in New York

By Liam Allen Entertainment reporter, BBC News

Simon and Garfunkel are planning to tour together for the first time in five years, Art Garfunkel has said.

The singer revealed the plans five days after making a surprise appearance at a Paul Simon concert in New York where the pair performed three songs.

"Our plan to work together is coming together but it doesn't go through England this time," he told BBC News.

Garfunkel, 67, would not confirm if the tour would be in the US. The duo last toured together in 2003 and 2004.

Their 2003 concerts marked their first US tour in 20 years.

On Friday night, Simon and Garfunkel performed together to rapturous applause at a concert to mark the reopening the Beacon Theater after refurbishment.

Worldwide success

Simon was joined on stage at the end of his concert by Garfunkel for the last three songs of the night - The Sounds of Silence, The Boxer and Old Friends.

Garfunkel, who performed solo shows in Florida on Thursday and Saturday nights, said: "It had a real reaction - it was extraordinary.

"It was extraordinary so I squeezed that in and did a lot of running around in the last week. "Just a hell of a knockout of a reaction.

"I said to the audience, 'you don't have a right to expect - and we didn't expect - that the interest in us would last and you would still care right to today and I'm touched'."

Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon met at school in New York

Simon and Garfunkel had worldwide success with songs including Bridge Over Troubled Water, Mrs Robinson and Scarborough Fair.

The duo have famously fallen out on a number of occasions since they first made music together as school friends in New York in the 1950s.

They split up in 1970, reuniting in 1981 for an open-air concert in New York's Central Park.

The pair did not play together again until 1993, when they got together for a series of concerts in New York.

They reunited at the Grammys in 2003 - their first public performance in 10 years - where they played The Sounds of Silence and were presented with a lifetime achievement award.

That led to their US tour of 2003 and a further string of dates, including some in Europe, the following year.