DIAMOND
DELIVERS
AT ARENA
By Howard Cohen
Miami Herald Staff Writer
It wasn't a "Hot August Night"---
it was a cold December one Mon-
day night at Miami Arena. But it
did offer warm memories of Neil
Diamond's past
Diamond will never again be
the pop/rocker he was in 1972,
when he released his seminal live
LP, 'Hot August Night.' He'll be 56
next month, and he's content to
leave the hard-rock posturing
and thrusting to the kids (and
to Tom Jones).
But he is reaching the young
again, perhaps helped by recent
covers of 'Girl You'll Be A
Woman Soon' by modern rockers
Urge Overkill and 'Solitary Man'
by 1990/s swooner Chris Isaak.
With this show, dubbed "The
Greatest Hits Tour," plus the
release this year of a well-
received country/pop CD ('Tennessee
Moon') and a three-CD box
set, 'In My Lifetime,' documenting
four decades of music-making,
Diamond's career has suddenly
been revitalized.
Diamond's better tunes--the
ones from the late '60's and early
'70's, mostly, are part of pop
culture. Thankfully, he seems to
know this now, and he has
excised the fat that muddied his
1993 concert at the Arena. Gone
are the dreadful '80's ballasts
('Heartlight', 'Yesterday's Songs'),
the schmaltzy stage patter,
the lazy coast through his catalog. He
still tends to bark out lines on ballasts
('Hello Again' was particularly
harsh) but as Monday's show
progressed, his voice
smoothed out, giving the romantic
'September Morn' and others
proper musical treatment.
Diamond seems reinvigorated
by the new attention. He
exhorted fans to stand and
dance, or at least clap, to the
uptempo numbers. "Wake that
kid and make him sing!" he
shouted to someone with a dozing
child near the front of his circular,
rotating stage. No luck, Junior
was out. So Diamond sang 'Forever
in Blue Jeans' again. Exuberantly.
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