Tender is the night
Readers, I say it now: I love Neil Diamond.
The concert was nothing short of spectacular. We arrived in time to purchase T-shirts, don them, buy ridiculously overpriced beers and find our seats, which were in nearly the most remote spot of the arena imaginable.
We sat there before the concert began, sipping our silly beers, gazing at the crowd through binoculars and engaging in some chit-chat with the couple next to us. They'd seen Mr. Diamond perform some 15 years ago and were eager to see how he'd changed over the years. We'd wondered the same. Would he wear a sparkly top, we wondered? And if so, would it be black? Blue? We did our homework. A quick Google search revealed that Neil's fashion sense had changed very little, and we left my apartment feeling fairly confident he'd be wearing something sparkly and black. We were not disappointed.
Neil Diamond puts on one hell of a show. He opened with a sweet little message for Dallas. "It's been a few years since we've visited this fine city," he said, "and we're hoping to reconnect with you tonight." Boy howdy did he! Initially we feared he'd spend most of the concert speaking rather than singing the songs, but after a few moments he found his voice and let 'er rip. At one point early on he asked that we turn to the person on our right and tell him or her that we love him or her. My job was easy: I turned to Erin, whom I love very, very much, and did Neil's bidding. The row below us was made up entirely of women in their 40's and 50's. The woman at the end had nothing but a metal divider to turn to on her right, but turn she did, for Neil said so. I do believe she smooched it (Erin, is this right?).
Although we could see the stage OK from our high vantage point, our neighbors were slightly less exuberant than we were, so we decided to make a break for some of the empty seats on the lower level. As we were loping through the arena en route for the less populated section we'd scoped out earlier, he launched into "We're Coming to America," so we had to stop for a bit and watch the show from the back. Oh, the joyful dancing did commence. Dancing, singing, fist raising -- we embraced the music, yea, the joy of Neil.
A lull eventually came, and we marched over to the area we'd seen earlier. We skipped down to some empty seats and asked whether their occupants had left. Sadly, no sooner had we sat down than the rightful owners returned. We climbed the steps to the landing to regroup. A friendly man witnessed the whole thing and gestured to us through the plexiglass. "The seats next to us aren't taken. Come sit here," he said. Oh, happy day! We gratefully sidled in and enjoyed the rest of the show from this much improved position.
I have never seen an audience so engaged. I looked around and saw people of every walk of life: 50-year-old women cavorting, 60-year-old couples embracing, a mother and her young daughter dancing together, two teenagers laughing -- seemingly without irony -- and keeping beat in the most entertaining manner.
The people behind us were a hoot. One woman asked, in a very Texan accent: "Is he gay?" A brief and amusing answer followed. At one point Erin raised her lighter in the air, and a jovially drunk and mustachioed man said: "I love you. May I borrow that?" Erin obliged, because she's cool like that. Later in the night he joined us on our row and asked for the lighter a couple more times. I hope he drank lots of water before he went to bed.
Say what you might about Neil Diamond, but that man knows how to work a crowd. He played many of the old favorites -- Cracklin' Rose," "Shilo," "Holly Holy," "Sweet Caroline," "I am, I Said" -- and injected just the right amount of self-deprecating commentary to keep us laughing. The members of the band, who rose from the pit in a most pleasingly dramatic manner, played well and truly seemed to enjoy their jobs. The backup singers were amazing.
Erin and I decided we'd like to adopt Neil Diamond. He seems so sweet, so guileless, so utterly pleased to perform for the crowd. Neil, if you're out there, please know that you're welcome at any and all holidays. Even though, despite our frequent insistence, you didn't turn on your heart light, you turned on ours, and you set the stage for one of the most splendid evenings I've had in a long time.
