Simon and Garfunkel heading to NZ

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel will start their reunion tour in Auckland in early June. Photo / AP

Simon and Garfunkel will start their reunion tour in Auckland in early June.

The much-rumoured concert at Vector Arena by the folk duo is to be announced officially in the next few days.

TimeOut's inquiries confirm the pair will be playing the one New Zealand date before heading to Australia on what might be their last international reunion tour.

There is no word as yet on ticket prices or on-sale date, but the 12,000-plus capacity venue is likely to sell out quickly. When the pair last toured the United States and Europe in 2003 after a 20-year break, the tour grossed US$123 million. And when they played a free show in New York's Central Park in 1981, about 500,000 people turned up.

Speaking during the last reunion, Simon said it was unlikely they'd tour again: "Because we do this every 10 or 12 years, this is probably the last time we're going to do this"

But the pair performed together again two months ago when Garfunkel joined Simon on stage at the reopening of New York's refurbished Beacon Theatre for a three-song encore.

And a few days later the 67-year-old Simon told a New York interviewer: "When we toured the last time we played in the United States and Europe and we promised to go out and play Australia, Japan and New Zealand and we never got around to it. So I am sure this will be the last time."

It appears the pair's manager, Jeff Kramer, has convinced the two to go out on the road and start their Australasia-Asian farewell tour in Auckland.

Both singers have toured here separately in the past - Garfunkel,68, was here solo in 2002. A sometime actor whose appearance in 1969's Catch-22 partly led to the duo's parting of the ways, Garfunkel is also making a cameo appearance on an upcoming episode of Flight of the Conchords and sources say the folk-comedy duo were being considered as a support act at the Auckland show.

Simon and Garfunkel's enduring hits include The Sounds of Silence (which has just been revived on the soundtrack of Watchmen), Mrs Robinson, I Am a Rock, Homeward Bound and The Boxer and their definitive Bridge Over Trouble Water album has sold more than 25 million copies since its 1970 release.