Neil Still Rules

My parents visited this past weekend. On Thursday AND Friday we joined crowds to sing our favorite songs and dance the nights away at the Neil Diamond concert in Madison Square Garden. Yes, nights. We saw Neil TWO times in TWO days. My dad “accidentally” purchased the same tickets twice. Some might call us crazy, but we prefer “die hard fans.”

I prepared Ben for the concert, for what I knew was coming thanks to seeing Neil perform in Columbus, Ohio eight years ago… an audience with a median age of 55 years and a packed wheelchair section. As expected, not much had changed in almost a decade.

We laughed as the crowd danced to several songs, capitalizing on the opportunity to get the circulation moving again in their legs. Without an intermission, they forwent beer and got their caffeine fix with Coke. With such a tame crowd, we were shocked when someone lit a doobie during “Forever in Blue Jeans.” Who knew?

I suppose Neil assumed that fans rarely attend two concerts in two nights, so he found no reason to improvise and change up his routine. After the first night, we had memorized his act and on the second night we lip synced and pantomimed his every move, even down to his best line for the audience seated behind him, “Did they actually make you pay for these seats?”

Oh, Neil. You are good. “So good, so good.”