Deixa-me rir...

"Caros audiophiles, I was lucky and privileged last Saturday to have tickets for a special BBC concert by Neil Diamond, in an intimate stylish venue called The Roundhouse which reminds me a little of Lisbon's Coliseu. I saw him once before years ago from the back of a big arena, so to experience him perform up close and personal was spectacular. By chance I was approached before the concert to do a live interview for radio to tell listeners, very briefly, why I loved Neil Diamond!

He is one of those artists who has never, I think, been considered 'cool' to like but who everybody likes to hear. Indeed, some of his compositions are better known through other artists' interpretations, such as I'm A Believer and Red Red Wine. but his own songs such as Sweet Caroline, Song Sung Blue, Beautiful Noise, Forever In Blue Jeans, You Don't Bring Me Flowers, and his Jonathan LIvingston Seagull soundtrack, are ingrained in our consciousness. His songs are personal, heartfelt, spiritual. For me, many of his songs have a slightly melancholy feel, a deep sense of searching for something out of reach, but they are also joyously uplifting because they speak truthfully about, and are celebrations of, love and life.

After such a long career it is hard to choose just a few songs. However, the first song I remember hearing, and probably still my favourite, is

I Am...I Said, his autobiographical account of living life in the spotlight and his deep sense of loneliness:

Another early song, Play Me has the most wonderful romantic lyric imaginable: She was morning and I was night time...you are the sun, I am the moon, you are the words, I am the tune, play me:

Forever / Pretty Amazing Grace

My only disappointment of Saturday's concert is that he did not perform songs from his recent album 12 Songs. To me, this has some of his best ever songs, performed acoustically and minimally with naked voice and guitar. His voice has deepened with age, giving an extra gravitas to a lifetime of experience and wisdom contained in every word he sings. I would recommend that you listen to his simple recipe for a successful loving relationship in We, his celebratory Delirious Love, and his deeply spiritual Man Of God, but here I offer Hell Yeah, which is his own honest 'I did it My Way/Non je ne Regrette Rien' reflection of his life and career:

A proxima,
PO