Oh, I came close during his "Coming to America" show opener two weeks after 9/11. I may have actually shed a few tears that night. I can get pretty emotional.
But this time, I cried off and on throughout the entire concert.
No, my meds aren't out of whack.
Betty and I bought tickets to the show back in April (see my Ticketmaster rant) (and I have another one, but it's not on this computer), when Joan didn't think she'd be able to take two days off work. But she was able to take the time off, so we needed an extra ticket. Joan didn't want to pay full price ($120 + Ticketmonster's "convenience fee" of $18.50 per ticket), (not to mention their $4.50 fee per ticket for the privilege of printing your ticket at home) and Betty really really wanted a better seat (see my Ticketmaster rant), so she obsessed for days about getting a better view. She spent hours at the Ticketmaster site, entering the number of tickets she wanted (1), then carefully typing the two nonsense words that comprise the "security code", seeing that the ticket being offered is still section 3 row M (ours were section 2--center--row U, so that wasn't an improvement), refusing the right to buy--and immediately, painlessly resell--the ticket, and starting over. Did I mention that she's obsessed when it comes to Neil?
She was getting a little worried the night before the concert when the same bad seats were popping up again and again. Finally one decent one showed up--section 1 or 3, whichever is on that side, row 7--and she agonized over it, then let it go. She. Let. It. Go. Then she
But after a while, it did come back up, and she grabbed it. So we were all set.
Back to the crying (mine, not hers). There Joan and I were, in decent seats, and there Betty was, in a pretty primo seat, close enough to see Neil sweat. We could stand on our tiptoes and see her, and she was beaming from the time she got there until she left. A crazy lady from the Neil Diamond bulletin board had the seat next to hers and kept her entertained, and, of course, there was Neil. (He's toned down his shirts a lot. No sequins this time.)
Seeing her so happy made me happy, so much so that I cried. For two hours.
But it was a good kind of crying, you know?
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5 comments:
Betty said....
Ah, it was wonderful, crying and all. I was pretty much in a trance the whole evening, but in a good way. Okay, a dancing and clapping trance, but a trance, just the same. Neil has that effect on me. And my new, exorborant friend from the ND message board just made it that much more fun, especially when she turned to me and said, "I can't believe all of these people came to see MY Neil!"
Thank you (and Joan) so much for going with me and for taking so much pleasure in my joy! And, okay, maybe I am just a little obsessed.
Betty said....
Oh! And thank you SO MUCH for giving me the guitar pick that Neil actually used that was given to you after the concert by the kind younger man who yelled in your ears for two hours! Even though you may never have normal hearing again, it's nice to see Neil fans having fun!
Like you said before, musical obsession is a good thing! Enjoy it! Revel in it!
I could include the man behind me in the Saving Silverman bunch. He knew exactly where to find those guitar picks; I don't think that anyone else was picking them up.
I didn't mention that we went into the Verizon center a couple of times before the show started hoping to hear the sound check (and I swear that I heard Neil singing, even though the guards said he wouldn't be there for a couple of hours), or that I asked a guard how much it'd take for him to let us into the garage. Nope, not mentioning that.
Awwww...I'm so glad y'all had such a blast! I've seen Neil in concert before too and he is always a complete sell-out in Sacramento. I had a seat in the nose bleed section though...still a great concert!!!
Sounds like you had fun :-) I have never seen him in concert but I would love to. :-)
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