The Kids Were All Wright: concerts

Most of us who read and contribute to this blog were there, but for those who weren't there, here is the long awaited review! And for those of us who were there, let this serve as a great reminder of the fantastic night we had last night.

Most of us Wrights saw Neil Diamond at the Energy Solutions Arena last night. 9 of us went to the concert. 4 Utah peeps (Sue, Cat, Em and Rob), and 5 Wyoming peeps (Mom, Dad, Amy, Matt and Bronwyn). I would like to thank you Wyoming people for coming all the way out here so we could see Neil as a family. And a special shout out to Haley and Marcus, (more WY peeps), for coming out to watch Scout so Em and Rob could go!

We bought the tickets at the beginning of October, and anxiously waited for the concert. I believe there are 3 or 4 postings on this blog that have to deal with the upcoming concert. We have had conversations about what Neil would open with, what he would wear, would he do any Christmas songs? etc. So, how was the concert? FREAKIN' AWESOME!!!!!

Let me just take a minute to describe where, in the arena, our tickets were. They were directly BEHIND the stage! I bought all the tickets online within 5 minutes of them going on sale. But they actually ended up being pretty good seats! We were very close to Neil! After a couple of songs he turned around and said "what did they tell you people to get you to buy those seats!" But you know what? Besides maybe the first 3 rows of the floor, we were the closest to Neil! Yeah we mostly saw his backside (which isn't a bad thing), but they had a couple of jumbotron screens right in front of us, so it was great! And, he made it a point a few times during the concert to pay special attention to us! His band did too. His band was great about turning around and waving and playing just for us.

So, onto the concert itself. First, what Neil wore. I believe the picture below shows the exact shirt he wore.

We were happy with what he wore, but I think the picture below shows what we all really hoped he would wear. But thats okay Neil! We love you!

Second, what Neil sang. Thanks to the Body Worlds people, I now carry around the little notebook they gave me to write down my observations. So I wrote down the set list in it.

Neil's opening song was, Holly Holy! (Neil, you are a true genius! We all knew you would open with something to let us know you were there, but none of us guessed Holly Holy! It was awesome!) Then he sang:

Beautiful Noise
Love on the Rocks (oh yeah, a Wright classic!)
Play Me (he turned around and sang the entire song to those of us who had seats behind the stage. It was great. He was a few feet away from us!)
Cherry Cherry

Then, because he has a new album out, he had to do a few songs from it. Amy owns it and says it is a good album, and from hearing the songs he sung from it, I would have to agree. So the next 3 songs came from his Home Before Dark album:

Home Before Dark
Don't Go There
Pretty Amazing Grace (I'm just guessing that is the name of the song.)

Then he sang, Done Too Soon-which Amy and Emily remember Catherine singing a lot when she was little and had a crush on Neil Diamond!

Then he sang, Brooklyn Roads-and the jumbotrons showed actual footage of old home movies of Neil and his family when he was a kid. It was really cool.

Then:

I Am, I Said-Amy's favorite song, and he did a great version of it!
Shilo
Forever in Blue Jeans-heck yeah! We were all dancing for that one!
Sweet Caroline- he got the entire audience going on that one (so good, so good!), when the song was over, everyone clapped and cheered for so long, he did the chorus a couple more times!
You Don't Bring Me Flowers-the best part of that song, (besides Neil's beautiful voice) was that the back up singer he sung it with, messed it up! When it came time for her to sing she sang "you don't sing me flowers, you don't sing me love songs". And you could tell that she knew she messed it up!
I'm a Believer- yes, the song the Monkee's made popular, but Neil wrote it!
Man of God
Hell Yeah-I wasn't familiar with this song, so I wrote down some of the lyrics and googled them. It says the name of the song is Hell Yeah!

Suddenly the concert was over! And it was time for the encore. He came right back out with:

Cracklin' Rosie
America- he did such a great job at that song, I felt like I was in the audience of that last scene of The Jazz Singer. To me, this song is the essential Neil Diamond!
Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show-such a great song! Catherine's favorite Neil songs are Holly Holy and Brother Love's. So he started and ended with her two favorite songs!

So, as you can see, Neil did a great set. He looked and sounded good. He has a great band, and it was just a great, fun night all around! A few people in our group were hoping he would do some of his Christmas songs, which would have been okay, but personally, I'm kind of glad he didn't. I love his Christmas stuff, but I was there to hear Neil do his classics, and he did not disappoint! Although, I have to say, there are a few songs I would have loved to hear. And they are:

Song Sung Blue
Hello
Longfellow Serenade
September Morn
Solitary Man
Turn on Your Heartlight-(hee hee, just kidding)

But that's okay Neil! I love you anyway, and last night was so great! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I loved being there with my family. And thank you Mom and Dad for passing on your love for Neil Diamond to all of us! You guys played a lot of music while we were growing up, and I think Neil is the only one we all collectively love. I do love Johnny Cash, but I think Kenny Rogers, Helen Reddy, Vicki Carr and Lynn Anderson are pretty much lost on us. But Neil will live on forever!

Matt, the below picture is for you. I'm so glad you love Neil. And I know you love his dramatic, arm extension, endings.

The below picture is for all of us. Our favorite movie ever! Do you guys realize this movie came out 3 years before Matt was born?

I want to take another moment here to record some observations I had during the concert. I didn't just write down the set list, I recorded some other stuff. Like this:

--The backup singer on the far right was awesome. Her dancing was great!
--Some dumb guy wore a Santa suit to the concert, and he seems to think he is really cool.
--Neil wiped away a fake tear after Brooklyn Roads. It was so cheesy! But that is a part of what we love about you Neil! You can be pretty cheesy!
--The old man behind me is pretty grumpy.
--When Neil was introducing his band and he got to one of the guitar players and said "he's good". It made me and Matt laugh pretty hard.
--The girl in front of me really likes Neil Diamond!
--I'm really glad there is a jumbotron.

And finally, there was a part of the concert that got me and Matt laughing so hard. Neil started talking about his band, and he was going on about how they've all been touring for 10 years or so and they were a family. He said that when he gets down they bring him up, and when that isn't good enough they bring him upper! It reminded us of a Saturday Night Live skit where Will Ferrell plays Neil Diamond in a VH1 Storytellers episode. I tried to find the skit on youtube, but I couldn't. If you can find it Matt, please add it.

I meant to add this when I first posted the review. But I believe we can all agree that Neil Diamond is way better than the Neil Diamond impersonater we saw last summer!

Here is a playlist of what we heard last night. I did it in order of the concert. One or two songs are missing, but you'll get the gist of what we heard last night.