Neil Diamond

M.E.N. Arena, Manchester

Saturday 7 June 2008

Neil Diamond?? What on earth were you doing going to THAT? – I can hear you say.

Well, although I could dress it up with a lot of palaver about what a great singer/songwriter he is, the great classics he has written, and what a great showman he is, the simple answer is that this is one of the things that you have to do for the sake of friendship from time to time. I have to say that personally, I have got no interest in Neil Diamond or his music, and but for the sake of having a good night out with a couple of friends, I wouldn’t have gone within ten miles of this concert, especially with tickets being ludicrously priced at £75+.

Having said all that, despite a few other reservations, it was a pretty good night out. My friends both enjoyed it – and for one of them it was a lifetime’s highlight, rather like what I felt when I saw Rush for the first time. To be honest, that’s all that really matters, and because of that, the evening goes down as a success.

My reservations are that the sound was far, far too quiet, (even for a middle of the road crooner), the set was far too short, (especially considering how expensive the tickets were), and whether he is a good showman or not, he didn’t do much to prove it – a nice large screen so that we could see him properly might have helped. To add insult to injury, there wasnt even a proper encore, which did seem to indicate a lack of respect for his fans.

To be honest, we had previously gone to see a tribute act, The Real Diamond (a.k.a John Hylton) whilst on holiday in Sussex in 2006, and in my humble opinion he put on a much better show – thanks mainly to the rather attractive dancing girls!! We are going to see him again at Southport on 18.10.08 and I bet that he once again walks all over the “real” Real Diamond.

Enough moaning. There is no doubt that Neil Diamond is a great singer songwriter and performer and that he has had a major influence on the popular music scene since the sixties, writing many tuneful easy listening hits with surprisingly deep lyrics, but also a number of famous tunes for other people. It’s just that despite all that, it just isn’t my cup of tea. He performed most of the hits that I can remember, and within the limits mentioned above, he did them very well. As expected he also played some new stuff, and I didn’t really care much for that.

Anyway, all that matters is SWEET CAROLINE – rather like Deep Purple HAVE to play Smoke On The Water, he simply HAS to play that, even though he might swoon at the thought of having to do it for the ten thousandth time. He did play it, it was fabulous, and everyone went home happy.

24.09.08