A week in New York - A Beautiful Noise

No sketches here, but the main reason for going to New York, apart from my big birthday, was to see A Beautiful Noise, the Neil Diamond Musical. It was amazing. I want to hold that feeling in my heart for a long time!

Yes, I bought the tshirt

Yes, I got to say hi to Katie Diamond, Neil Diamond's wife

Yes, I went to The Bitter End, where Neil Diamond first started performing, a long time ago.

Yes, I got my picture taken with Deandre Sevon, the wonderful artist who sings Shilo in the show.

No, I didn't wait to get an autograph from Nick Fradiani and Amber Ardolino, the two principals. But I follow them on Instagram!

 

Stones

Crows, stones. I think they are all pointing to my love of Irish beaches. The first thing I'll do when I can drive again is drive to Killiney beach and sit in the car and draw and paint!

At first, I thought "Pick a pen, any pen, and draw" - that's it? that's all Andrea Joseph has to teach us? But as I worked through her assignments in Sketchbook Skool, I finally got it. How cross-hatching with a biro can be so soft, how you can build layers that blend into each previous layer, without looking heavy. How this pen or that pen is not going to make you an artist. How drawings build themselves up organically. 

And I've already started a button collection drawing. Inspired by Bake-A-Yarn and Andrea Joseph. Muses can appear in any guise!

At this point, my only regret is that there is nobody left in this Sketchbook Skool class to chat with. That's what happens when you buy more than one Kourse at a time (I bought three last September - I did Beginning, this one is Seeing and the next one I have is Storytelling) - everybody else is gone. 

There is an eerie end-of-the-world feeling about it. But this is the internet, so my thoughts and words will probably be discovered by an archeologist or an anthropologist in a few hundred years' time! And that happy thought keeps me going! Plus, I'm posting the same drawings here on my blog, and Twitter, and Google Plus and Pinterest, so at least 30 people will see them (my blog stats were much better when I was posting screen shots of Jean Byrne and other female weather forecasters. Strange that, or a sad commentary on celebrity and leather dresses!). That's not bad. Why not Facebook, you ask? Well, I don't want to drown my friends and family in my daily musings, so I only post my best pieces there. And if they want to know what I'm really up to, they can check this blog whenever they want to - few ever do. You're different. You come here by choice. Thank you.

I think blue is my favourite colour now, à propos of nothing. Though I rarely wear it or paint it.

Oh, and forgot to say that Stones is also the title of an old Neil Diamond song!

An Irish Audience

This is not going to be a good quality video, but that's all I've got I'm afraid. I tried to post it to YouTube a few times but kept getting an error.

I wonder do audiences in other countries get into it as much?

Neil Diamond

He may be 74, but he's still got it!!

We went to see Neil Diamond at the 3 Arena on Friday night.

And he knows how to please his audience - he sang all the oldies - Kentucky Woman, Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon, Sweet Caroline, Shilo, Crunchy Granola Suite, If You Know What I Mean, Play Me, Brooklyn Roads, Cherry Cherry, Solitary Man, I'm a Believer, Brother Loves Travelling Salvation Show, Song Sung Blue, Beautiful Noise, Hello Again, America, Red Red Wine, Holly Holy, Pretty Amazing Grace... I've probably forgotten a few, but you can get the set list on setlist.fm.

I had a ball, despite my bad arm - I bopped the night away, along with the rest of the audience (apart from that woman there behind me who didn't seem to get into the spirit - maybe she doesn't like to sing along?)

And then, as if one night wasn't enough, I watched the second Dublin concert last night, live on Periscope, thanks to Neil Diamond's wife, Katie, who seems to be filming every single concert on her iPhone and posting them live to Periscope for the fans. Thank you Katie! If you want to watch the remaining concerts, check out Neil Diamond's Twitter feed where you'll find the Periscope links. But bear in mind that the streams expire fairly quickly after each performance. Yesterday's concert is still on as I write this, but it'll probably be gone by tomorrow.

Neil Diamond is still a girl's best friend!

Neil Diamond 1971 BBC concert

Just found this on YouTube. Yes, I love opera, but I'm also a Neil Diamond fan!

Hot August Night

Brendan taped this for me last week - Hot August Night NYC - a recording of Neil Diamond's concert in Madison Square Garden. Basically the same concert as the one in Croke Park last year, with some of his old songs, like Cherry Cherry and Kentucky Woman (my personal favourite), and some of the brand new ones, such as Pretty Amazing Grace (which I can recognise from the first chord).

I enjoyed the few bits outside the concert - the scene where he goes back to his old neighbourhood in Brooklyn, which seems to have gone a lot more "ethnic" than when he lived there, I'd say, and he talks to some black kids who have no idea who he is and he starts mentioning some his top songs, like Sweet Caroline, and they don't know any of them. He finally thinks to mention Red Red Wine, and yes, they've vaguely heard of that one. It's just surreal.

And also the bit where he shows some of the glitzier shirts he used to wear!

Don't like to see him up too close - too much foundation I think! But he still has a good voice, and he puts his heart in it. We've kept the recording and I might watch it again!

Neil Diamond

As you know, I'm a big Neil Diamond fan, going back years. I'm from the Beautiful Noise generation, but I quickly discovered all the old songs. Amongst my favourites are Kentucky Woman, Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon, Do You Know What I Mean?, Soolaimon, Lady Magdalen, I'm a Believer, Dear Father. OK, I'd better stop here, the list could go on. I quite like the 12 Songs album, and I think I will love his new album Home Before Dark (I don't know yet, as I'm eagerly awaiting my birthday to find out, but the few songs I've heard from it are good. I particularly like Pretty Amazing Grace).


All this to say that we went to his concert in Croke Park last night, with Padraig and Mary, and had a great night. A pity we got soaked in the only shower of the day, just as we arrived. I warmed up pretty quickly, once I started dancing and jumping, but Mary couldn't shake the cold through the whole show. We got pretty good seats, in block B, not close enough to see faces, but at least the band and himself didn't look like stick insects in the distance. Croke Park is such a big place (my first time there, by the way).


He played all the old goodies (except Kentucky Woman, much to my disappointment) and 3 songs from the new album and a couple from 12 Songs. A good mix of slow and fast, old and new. As usual, Sweet Caroline got the crowd going (apart from a grumpy woman behind me who wasn't happy when I started dancing at the first song, Cherry Cherry! Apparently, she left soon after telling me to sit down! Ah well. She didn't spoil my night. I got dancing again soon after, as other people ahead of me got on their feet.)


A great night. I'll go again next time he's in Ireland. As he's 67, you never know when he'll decide to retire! I think his voice is better than it was a few years ago, by the way. A pity about the sparkly shirts, though. I thought he had given up on those. He was just keeping it hidden under a sober (and warm) jacket!


I can't get onto the neildiamond.com site right now, but have a look at the videos on the neildiamondhomepage (a fan site). And if you want to hear the new songs, check out MySpace, where you'll also find a link to the concert at The Bitter End in New York. (note that there are some popups on MySpace, and plenty of advertising).


PS: I think the picture above has been air-brushed! He didn't look that young in reality.