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---Diamond Show Real Sparkler.
Reprinted from AJC. May 15, 1976
Singing Just For You.
By Scott Cain.
The Neil Diamond concert was one of those events that leaves everybody happily drained. Both artist and audience gave far more to the occasion than was required by mere politeness.
Diamond has the knack of making an audience feel it is the most important crowd that has ever heard him perform. His Friday show at the Fox, the first of three he is giving this weekend in the grand old theatre, could not have seemed more tailor made for the occasion
if he had spent six months working up a special performance.
He turned the Fox's mighty organ into a supporting performer for a routine that was comic highlight of the concert. While an organist ground out a "Phantom of the Opera" style tune, Diamond recited a witty dialogue about Jimmy Carter's unlikely rise from peanut prince to would-be occupant of the White House. This number may prove to be the funniest comment anyone will make about election-year aspirations.
Diamond also took advantage of the Fox organ's ability to crank out the unlikeliest sounds--auto horns blaring and whatnot. He made this serve as sound effects for the title number from his soon due album, "Beautiful Noise".
Except for this song, Diamond's show was a greatest hits collection. Many of the numbers he rendered exactly as they were recorded, but in the most important intervals in the concert he revealed a commendable flair for expanding on familiar material. He turned Song Sung Blue into a audience sing-a-long. Sweet Caroline had such a reception that he sang it several times in mid-concert.
He opened the show with a bang, the pulsating "Soolaimon." From there, he ran through a long collection of his hits, "Solitary Man", "Play Me", "Morningside", "Hot August Night," "The Last Picasso" and many others, taking care to present each one as if his reputation would rise or fall based on its interpretation.
The show was a reminder of the broad range of material that Diamond has used to advantage. His intensity as a song stylist is such that each person feels Diamond is singing just for him.
The evening had plenty of light moments too. Aside from the traditional addled blond in the aisle, Diamond cast a especially hypnotic spell on one young woman (wearing a luminescent green necklace,yet), who was unable to restrain herself and bounded onto the stage to tell him how adorable she considers him to be Gallant to the end . Diamond assured the dazed creature that he returned her deep feeling.
To say that the audience ate up the show would be a monstrous understatement. Diamond indicated that he was overwhelmed with the response and it is easy to believe he was.
He gave a long encore consisting of selections fro "Jonathan Livingston Seagull." When even this did not satisfy the crowd, he gave two more encores, each one to thunderous applause.
The End.
Reprinted from AJC. May 15, 1976
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