Product Description

Neil Diamond is an American legend. He is one of the finest and most successful songwriters of the last forty years as well as being a multi-platinum selling recording artist and one of the most dynamic and consummate live performers of his generation. This concert from the Sydney Sports Stadium was the culmination of his Australia & New Zealand tour in 1976, an event that marked his comeback to the live stage after a creatively fruitful four year sabbatical from live performance. The vast crowd was typical of this record-breaking tour, still one of the most memorable in Australian history, and Neil Diamond delivered the enthralling performance of a true showman.

TRACK LISTING 1) Missa 2)Soolaimon 3) Play Me 4) Solitary Man 5) Cherry Cherry 6) Sweet Caroline 7) The Last Picasso 8) Longfellow Serenade 9) Song Sung Blue 10) Cracklin' Rosie 11) Holly Holy 12) I Am...I Said 13) Anthem 14) Be 15) Dear Father 16) Skybird 17) Lonely Looking Sky 18) Anthem (reprise) 19) Be (reprise) 20) Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show 21) I've Been This Way Before

Bonus Features * Restored version of "Morningside", a track that was partly cut due to a commercial break in the original live broadcast. * 50-minute interview with Neil Diamond filmed during the Australian tour. * Neil Diamond's on stage commercial breaks. * Behind The Scenes: David Frost's original build-up to the concert for Channel 9 TV. * Photo Gallery. * English Closed Captioning throughout the performance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11813 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-07-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, Live, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 177 minutes

Customer Reviews

Diamond at his Best
This is a fantastic concert that show cases many of Neil Diamond's greatest hits. I still remember watching this concert live on TV as a teenager over 30 years ago. This concert is more in the 'Hot August Night' style - which is vastly superior to Neil Diamond's more recent DVD concerts and live CDs - there is no screaming, no mundane dialogue from an aging artist - just excellent music. This concert is highly recommended to anyone who is a fan of Neil Diamond's 60's and 70's style of delivery.

Ohh what could have been.
As a life long Neil Diamond fan, in fact I can remember being rocked to sleep as a baby to the echo's of Hot August Night, I was so excited to find this DVD and the era the it represented, the Mid-70's when Neil Diamond was the essential Singer-Songwritter of his generation. Nobody had yet heard of Billy Joel, Elton John or Bruce Springsteen. When it came to male singer-songwritters, Neil was the man. The song selection and concert presentation on this DVD is first rate a nice mix of his early classics and just released songs from Johnathan Livingston Seagull and Beutiful Noise recordings with an appropiriate amount of crowd interaction. In the Mid-70's Diamond's voice was still strong and he was singing his music, not talking it like he has progressed towards in the mid-80's and later. My biggest disappointment with this video is the sound mixing. Realizing this video is over 30 years old and there are serious sound limitations in the source tape, but still it does not appear to have been any effort or attempt to clean up the sound. There is no 5:1 suround sound offered and in portions of the DVD the sound has a repetative "hissing" that is either an poor dual layering of the disc or a source tape defect. I found this sound defect to be very distracting from an otherwise historical DVD presentation. It is a shame, the producers did not spend a few more dollars to clean up and present the audio in the first class presentation that it deserved. If the music from Woodstock/Jimi Hendrix and early Rolling Stones can be made almost prestine, then there is no excuse for the defects in this DVD's audio. So for the concert, songs, presentation 5 stars, for the audio 1 star, overall 3 stars, but ohh what it COULD have been.

1976... The Final Frontier for Neil Diamond
I can't believe the negative reviews! This is by far the best Neil Diamond DVD out there! Sure, if you like all that Heartlight/Coming-to-America/Bring-me-no-flowers crap, and if you like his glittery costumes and Vegas schtick, then you'll hate this DVD. Mainly because ND was still a great songwriter/performer at this point. After 1976, Neil slowly moved into the realm of shlocky muzak balladeer, down there with Lionel Richie & Leo Sayer. Some reviewers complain about the sound. If you have a decent stereo TV, this sounds fine. Just turn it up. Those with 5.1 surround sound and a pristine home theater will hate this and most 60's & '70's DVD's. Such people wouldn't be happy unless Neil played in their freaking living room! Yes, I think Hot August Night is his undisputed peak, but until that is released on DVD, this Australian show stands as classic Neil Diamond. I subtract one star for the cheesy '70's synthesizer that replaces counter-melody guitar lines on Cracklin' Rosie & a few others. Thankfully, there are no disco songs to cringe over.