Neil Diamond
The Niagara Center for the Arts
Buffalo, NY
March 31, 2015

16 bit version

Taped, transferred and mastered by }{eywood
Gear: AT 831s > Tascam DR-05
Lineage: Dr-05 > USB > Adobe Audition 1.5 (EQ, clap reduction, peak limiting, splits & fades, conversion to 16/44.1) > TLH (SBE fix, flac 8)

I took my mom to see this show for her birthday, which was a week earlier. She's a hardcore Diamond fan and has seen him a dozen times going back to the 60s. This was my 6th time seeing Neil, and the best his voice sounded out of all of them. I saw shows in 89, 92, 93, 96 and 2012, and all the 80s and 90s shows his voices was pretty rough. In fact Forever In Blue Jeans from the show I went to in 93 made it onto the Live in America album. My mom's favorite song.

The mox was strange. There was very little high end, particularly for the first half hour. I could hear the horns and cymbals coming off the stage because there was no treble on the PA. After about 20 minutes this improved a bit, but I still had to EQ the high end back into the recording. Strange. You'd think with all the old people there they'd have the high end up more than normal, not less.

This is Neil's new band, and they're lousy compared to the old one. Not that they're bad musicians. They're just sterile. They sound like the band that makes all those karaoke backing tracks. In fact, when I saw him in Cleveland in 2012 the vocals were cranked really loud and it sounded like he was singing karaoke. At least the balance was better at this one.

Neil's voice was strong and smooth. No more of that gravelly shouting he did all through the 90s. Not bad for a guy who's 74. I hear he's retiring after this tour, but I say he's got some years left in him if his voice was that good.


01 Intro
02 I'm A Believer
03 Desiree
04 Love on the Rocks
05 Hello Again
06 Pretty Amazing Grace
07 You Got To Me
08 Kentucky Woman
09 Solitary Man
10 Red Red Wine
11 Beautiful Noise
12 If You Know What I Mean
13 Brooklyn Roads
14 Shilo
15 In Better Days
16 The Art of Love
17 Forever In Blue Jeans
18 Cherry Cherry
19 Holly Holy
20 I Am...I Said

21 Cracklin Rosie
22 Sweet Caroline
23 America
24 Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show
25 Heartlight
26 Brother Love (reprise)
27 exit music