Neil

Last Thursday I went to see Neil Diamond in concert with my mom, Mike, and some other friends. The show was at the Hollywood Bowl, which is a GREAT place to go. It was a good show, not the best I have been to, but still a lot of fun. Cher was even in the audience.

At 69 years old, Neil's still got it. He dances and sings and makes jokes. His voice cracked a little at the beginning and he moves a bit slower. When he would walk from one side to the other, it took quite some time. He solved that problem though with a moveable platform. He stood on it and sang or played the guitar and the platform moved for him. He's so clever.

I grew up on Neil - my mom and dad were big fans - so the old stuff is what I like. He has a new album out, so I was worried that he'd play mostly from that. Neil came through though and played most of his most popular old stuff - I Am, I Said, Forever in Blue Jeans, America, etc. More than anything I wanted him to play Sweet Caroline, and he did! I also wanted him to do You Don't Bring Me Flowers, but not just to sing it, instead I wanted him to sing it with surprise guest Barbara Streissand. It was such a surprise that Barbara didn't even know about it, and some other woman sang it. It was not as good and he even changed up the arrangement so it was hard to sing along.

Oh, well, overall it was fun. Here are two videos of America - one of his last songs. (Sorry for the shaky cinematography - it's hard to dance and film at the same time. I did keep the singing to a minimum so as to not outsing Neil.)

I know, that single, bouncing hand is annoying.