On Friday, November 8, 2024 at 7:30 p.m., the Stockton Performing Arts Center hosted a sold-out event named “So Good! The Neil Diamond Experience” starring Robert Neary. Doors opened half an hour before the show began, filling the PAC lobby instantly with people who have been fans of Neil Diamond for a long time. 

Neil Leslie Diamond is an American singer-songwriter with over 227 songs and 130 million records sold worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He was born and raised in New York where he started off his career writing songs for other musicians, which transitioned into Diamond launching his own solo career that has expanded for past four to five decades. Diamond attended New York University with the sole intention of attending medical school, but dropped out of his last year to pursue songwriting for Sunbeam Music Company. Instantly, Diamond started his tenure, making him the most stable songwriter to work out of New York’s Brill Building. Some of Diamond’s songs that may sound familiar are “I Am… I Said,” Cherry, Cherry,” “Love on the Rocks,” “Cracklin Rosie,” “Forever in Blue Jeans,” and his most famous song was played all throughout social media during the years 2020-2021: “Sweet Caroline”. 

Robert Neary was born and raised in Long Island, New York. He’s not just known as a producer, but also an actor in some of the entertainment well-known shows and movies such as “Criminal Minds,” “Independence Day: Resurgence,” “Sons of Anarchy,” “The Perfect Student, ” and many more. Now, he is the creator and Headliner of the “So Good! The Neil Diamond Experience,” where he is currently on tour delivering a tribute to American singer-songwriter, Neil Diamond. With over 40 years of experience within the entertainment industry, Neary has had three Broadway leads, and this is the fourth year of his tour, selling out all of the consecutive U.S. shows with no sight of an end as of now. During the show, Neary was accompanied by a band whose instruments varied in different styles and families. There were musicians on the trombone, saxophone, trumpet, bass guitar, drums, electric guitar, keyboard, and acoustic guitar — an instrument in which was played by Neary himself. 

Some of the songs that Neary performed were “Coming to America,” “Cracklin Rosie,” “Longfellow Serenade,” “Love on the Rocks,” and “Song Sung Blue” which seemed to be one of the crowd’s favorites. Before some of the songs that Neary performed, he shouted out to the crowd before singing. In the set honoring Neil Diamond’s album “Jazz Singer,” which Neary pointed out as “Diamond’s biggest album of all time,” the song “Hello Again” was dedicated to “all the anniversaries in the house.” During his songs, Neary would constantly be looking at the crowd and trying to interact, making the environment a very wholesome and exciting place.

“Even though we can’t perform all 227 songs, we tried to choose the best, but you’ll get 20 of them,” Neary said, prompting the crowd to erupt in laughter. During the show, Neary also mentioned how Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film, E.T.. is actually one of Neil Diamond’s favorite movies and the inspiration for his song “Heartlight.” Neary pulled his saxophonist. Donnie Ma,c out to help perform this beautiful song that the crowd endured with lots of cheers and applause all throughout the theater. Neary also performed “September Mom,” which then prompted these performances to be the crowd’s favorites.

The Monkees were an American pop-rock band formed in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s. Band members consisted of Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Micheal Nesmith, and Peter Tork, and their popular songs include “Walking on Sunshine” and “I’m A Believer,” the latter being written by Neil Diamond. Neary informed the crowd that The Monkees “sold out 10,000,000 copies worldwide” of Diamond’s song, and Neary performed it, prompting the audience to clap along and dance in their seats to this song. 

During intermission, one audience member stated “Even though this is not the real Neil Diamond, Neary’s voice is so amazing that I can’t tell the difference.” Another audience member mentioned, “Neil Diamond is one of my favorite artists, I feel like I’m hearing him live even though it’s not him.” During this time, people were stating how much they were glad to come out tonight. Overall, the show was a big success for not just Robert Neary and his team, but the Performing Arts Center as well with this being their first sold-out show of this fall semester.

If you missed the show Neary is still on tour and you can check out tour dates and all about this tour on their website. To check out more shows happening at the Performing Arts Center, visit the Stockton website.