Neil Diamond - Check One Off the Bucket List!

Last night I checked one off my bucket list when we went to a Neil Diamond concert! 

True he doesn't look or walk like he did in 1966 but then who does?  I was 13 years old!  But he can still sing! 

From the concert review:

A mostly over-50 crowd packed the house as Diamond enthralled digging way deep in his catalog of songs which stretch back to the 1960s, before man even stepped on the moon. The show opened with still photos and videos rotating across a diamond shaped projector screen before the real Diamond took the stage in front of his 12 member band.

Diamond is 76 years old, or perhaps that’s young, because he hardly looked, acted and most importantly sang like what the rest of us mere mortals expect from somebody closer to 100 than 50. Sure, he doesn’t move like a 30-something rocker, walks a bit gingerly at times, nor does he look like the guy gracing the cover of his hit live album Hot August Night,  instead looking gentlemanly and rather dapper wearing a black shirt blazoned with rhinestones, sporting a goatee, and more salt than pepper hair. Diamond always resonated like an old soul anyway but his vocals sounded just as fresh and polished off any album from 40 years ago.

'Song Sung Blue' to 'Solitary Man' to 'I Am I Said' to 'Crunchy Granola Suite'.  It was a musical stroll down memory lane. The songs you learn as a teenager leave lasting impressions.  That is probably because of the hours teens spend in their rooms listening to  favorites play over and over and over on a record player.  I know I drove my mother crazy listening to the same songs so many times!  Served me well last night as I knew every word of every one of the old songs.

He ended without singing 'Sweet Caroline' or 'Cracklin Rosie' and I felt disappointed but I shouldn't have as he came back out and sang both of those favorites.  I think all 19,000 people were on their feet reliving their teenage years as we danced with Neil through an extended singalong! He ended with a heart felt rendition of a patriotic favorite "America".

The review in our paper ended with this sentence.  

I can’t really put it any better than the beaming, grandmother-aged woman I overheard joyfully telling her concert companions as the crowd exited the Moda Center: “Well, that was wonderful.”

He could have been talking about me!