A Night with Neil

As a child I don't remember a lot of music in our home.  My parents liked different types of music, but they rarely played albums and tapes on our home stereo.  I can recall one artist that both my mom and dad enjoyed listening to:  Neil Diamond.

The Jazz Singer soundtrack was huge in our home in the early 80's.  All the songs were big hits for us:  America, Love on the Rocks, You Don't Bring me Flowers, and more.  I can still remember my older sister having us all play "dress up" to perform some of Neil's greatest hits.

I continued to listen to Diamond's songs as my musical tastes were developing.  I absolutely loved singing along with Sweet Caroline and I'm a Believer.  How many high schools guys knew all the words to Shilo?  I can name one - this guy!

For my birthday earlier this year Tara asked me what was something special I wanted.  I told her that I would like to see Neil Diamond in concert.  I knew that he was coming and I wanted to be there.  She bought the tickets and last night Tara and I were rocking out with Diamond at Rio Tinto Stadium.

It was a great night.  Diamond brought the crowd to their feet and had the grandmas dancing in the aisles.  Tara and I had a lot of fun, singing along as Neil's cranked out hit after hit.

The highlight of the night was signing Sweet Caroline.  Maybe it's because we love the 8th inning version of the song at Fenway Park, but this song always makes me smile.  Neil knows the crowd loves it as well - he sang the chorus 5 times!  It didn't matter though, we could have sang it one more time.  Our date was amazing, the night was perfect, and the concert was so good, so good, so good!