"The room is suddenly still and when you'd almost bet you could hear yourself sweat... he walks in..." (Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show)
I thought it'd be fun. To see Neil Diamond in concert again. I mean, he is getting older, how many more opportunities will I have before he gets too tired to tour? I've loved him for 31 years. His music is a major part of the soundtrack of my life, beginning at 12 years old. Neil Diamond: Live at the Greek, TV special. 1977.
I fought alot with my brother Stan, the youngest of my three brothers, because he was closest in age to me. But the thing that connected me and Stan was music. He loved music, and had a wide variety of record albums in his collection. He spent hours in his room, listening. Savoring. He was picky, too, in his tastes. It had to be quality.
Stan also had a way of finding music to fit the person. So in one of his more generous, less annoying-brother moments, he suggested I watch The Live at the Greek Concert. He thought I might like Neil Diamond. He even watched it with me.
Ohmygosh. I was mesmerized. Maybe it was Neil Diamond's drama and intensity. Even if I didn't know what "Holly Holy" meant, Neil sang it with such drama that you believed it meant something really deep and important. He's a poet. Like me. He was intense. Like me. He was passionate. His music became my own expression through my teenage years...."I've got an emptiness deep inside, and I've tried, but it won't let me go..." (I Am I Said)
So I thought it'd be fun to see him in concert. I'd gone to see him with my parents (nobody else my age would dare be seen at a Neil Diamond concert in 1982), and he was AWESOME. Dad had to leave the stadium a few times to adjust the cotton in his ears, but I was euphoric. 1982. 26 years ago.
I'm 43 years old now. I have a lot of musical interests-- still a lot of "old men" in the repertoire-- but Neil has always been up there all these years.
I went with a few girlfriends, and a busload of people. I was one of the younger ones on the bus, but I was heartened to see a few teenage boys in the crowd.
I knew I was excited. I just didn't know how.
When Neil came out on the stage, I audibly gasped. Ohmygosh. I felt like a little girl, or a half-crazed-in-love 17 year old adolescent all over again. I was surprised at the spontaneous thrill that went through me, and before I could think about it, I was DANCING, clapping, singing, screaming. It was nuts. The music, music I knew by heart, word for word, from hours and hours of listening alone in my room while writing poems of adolescent angst.. it was wonderful. For two hours, I lost all inhibition, all self-consciousness of being 43 years old and how to act. This was NEIL. 26 years later, he was just as good.
"Eyes black as coal, and when he lifts his face, every ear in the place.. is on him.."
I bumped my friend next to me, dancing, singing, screaming, waving my fists in the air, singing along, and let myself be carried up on the waves of the music of my life. Music that gave me joy when I felt sorrow. Music that expressed lonliness that I couldn't put into words myself. Songs sung blue, that made me feel better, more connected, more alive. Though it sounds cliche, it was like coming home. Remembering who I am, remembering my basic love of words, music, passion and the power of it all put together. Ohmygosh, for two hours I was in another world of such intense joy, fun, and intensity, I thought I'd never land again. And that was ok. It was Neil.
He played my whole life for me.. I could attach memories to songs, to years, right up to the present. I remembered the importance of that music. How often it was a lifeline, a sermon, a release. I wondered what it felt to have that much power, to know that millions of people knew words that you wrote, by heart, could sing them back to you in a stadium of 15,000 people. What a rush! He can't possibly know each story in that stadium, and the many others he'll be visiting. The stories like mine, of how music, HIS music, shaped a poet's heart and words and gave her hope and life. So many stories in that room, that night. Why we were there. What we brought, what we took away from it. What that one life on that stage meant to each of us, and the gifts that he gave us. That night and throughout many years.
It was good for my soul. Good for my heart. A Nestea plunge for my spirit, after a very harsh year. Remember the music. The music is always there. The music goes on, long past the lives that create it, and add to the ongoing eternal stream of it. Someday Neil will be too old to belt out his classics for two solid hours, night after night, city after city, across the world. But we won't forget. The music will still go on. Younger ones, like my own daughter, will find joy and passion in the same music, and wish she could hear it live. That's a gift. When someone with heart and soul comes along and adds their notes to the song that goes on.
Thanks Neil, for inspiring me to write, to rise above pain and put it to music. Thanks for the soundtrack of my life. Thanks for the music.
Play on, Man.
No comments:
Post a Comment