Dennis St. John

The majestic Neil Diamond live! Prepare to melt.

Neil Diamond gives a powerful and memorable performance at the packed Greek Theatre in Los Angeles in 1976, perhaps one of Neil’s great years. The show takes us back to a memorable time in pop music and in Neil Diamond’s career - while also giving us music that is as fresh and timeless today as it was then. The early hits are here, in rousing and intimate interpretations: ‘Cherry, Cherry,’ ‘Song Sung Blue,’ ‘Sweet Caroline,’ ‘I Am...I Said,’ ‘Cracklin’ Rosie,’ and more. But Neil also introduces songs from what was then his new album - and is now considered a classic - the benchmark ‘Beautiful Noise,’ produced by rocker Robbie Robertson. And Neil gets across the footlights, bringing the big audience to its feet, inciting clapping and singing along, and pulling two of the best-known stars of the era, singer Helen Reddy and the actor Henry Winkler (then an icon as TV’s ‘Fonzie’) up on stage to sing with him. An amazing trip back in time with one of our most enduring singers.

In 1976, Neil Diamond ended his monumental tour of Australia and New Zealand by playing to 38,000 fans in Sydney, a record number for a pop concert at the time. Originally broadcast as a television special, Neil Diamond - The Thank You Australia Concert: Live 1976 captures that historical night, preserving a consummate performer at his most muscular. Striding the stage in yellow shirt and leather pants, Diamond is a master showman, playing to the rafters while somehow making the massive venue into an intimate club show. The singer spends almost as much time chatting with the crowd as he does playing music, including an extended run through of all the places from around the country and around the world the concertgoers have traveled from.