Music Reviews

Aug 11, 1999 - Neil Diamond's Religious Ascendency at Lawlor

By Jack Neal

ø0aPerforming in a giant echo chamber has its advantages.

Neil Diamond rediscovered that Wednesday (8/11/99) when he played Reno's Lawlor Event Center which has the echoey acoustics of a medieval cathedral. Everything Diamond sang and said had the Cecile B. DeMille bigness of the word of God. All he did was accepted with the out-stretched hands of 11,244 adorng participants (Diamond fans never just watch and listen) with the orgasmic ecstasy of a religious transformation.

It needs to be pointed out, I'm not a devout Diamond fan. I like much of his music and the way he sings it, but I wasn't prepared for the adulation of Wednesday's just under capacity crowd. Nor did Lawlor's cavernous, boomeranging sound bounce help. It was virtually impossible to tell what Diamond was singing, save perhaps for devoted fans (most in the audience) who knew all the star's songs by their mere glance off a far wall.

For those of us less devout types, it was like being trapped in an L.A. traffic jam with Madonna one car over. Such adulation only occurs, when a pop icon can't find an exit, or in the Crystal Cathedral at collection time. The smeared sound levels were so mesmerizing, the multi-million dollar light system so intoxicating, the slowly moving lazy-Susan type stage (dead center in the vast hall) from which the master worked so vertigo inducing, my head felt like my feet used to feel after taking off roller skates.

What can't be denied is how much pleasure fans - old, young and in between - get out of the shrewdly packaged and undeniably magnificent, if overblown, show. Some thirty songs and 125 minutes later, when the star finally left his merry-go-round set, even the most diehard of concertgoers had to admit Diamond is an audience's best friend. Certainly the excellent nine-piece band of drums, guitars and synthesizers - pumped up to symphonic proportions - helped with the hype that makes the show's star glitter so brilliantly. Once the ooze of sound had subsided, I discovered "Cracklin' Rose," "Solitary Man," "September Morn," "I Am, I Said," and over two dozen other songs most of them Diamond's, had been lined up like ducks in a carnival firing range and dispatched with the singer's smooth marksmanship for grandiose delivery.

One of the show's nicest moments came with Diamond's duet with singer Linda Press, a touchingly brought off (as touching as a voice-of-God amplification allows) "You Don't Bring Me Flowers." That was the only moment in the limelight the star shared with anyone, save for a twanging, screeching and thankfully short bout with heavy duty rock managed as handsomely as that sort of thing can be by Diamond's two lead guitarists.ø0a

Two songs from Diamond's "As Time Goes By" Movie Album were the most serene things this blockbuster show offered. "As Time Goes By" was nostalgically sung, a nice reminiscence of Bergman and Bogart's "Casablanca." Presley's "Can't Help Falling In Love" was a reminder of just how good Presley could be and Diamond can be with an unpretentious song. With Diamond, a lack of pretention doesn't last long before it's kicked into the upper echelons of evangelical fervor. His "America," four fluttering flags and all, was a tribute to the gutsiness of his grandparents who came to America for a better life, and - of course - the emergence of Diamond, himself. "I'm a Believer" reached out for ecclesiastical highs beyond what even the sound system allowed. And what would, after all, a Diamond show be without an extended "Sweet Caroline"? Probably a Diamond show without the ultimate finale. ø0a

The "ultimate" is what the entertainment enhancement qualities of Neil Diamond, who is now midway into his 58th year, is about. His inclinations may land on the side of pomposity, but he knows what pleases fans and he gives them one of the best returns for today's entertainment dollars of any star and shrewd entrepeneur in show business.