Night-O-Neil

Good Beer.

Good Food.

Good Coffee.

Good Chocolate.

Good Songs.

Good Friends.

What more could a girl want from a night on the town? Not much.

Months ago, while shopping for Mother's Day gifts for our moms, my friend J.P. and I came up with this fantastic plan: Neil Diamond was coming to town. Since our parents are the best-est of friends, wouldn't it be grand if we rolled Mother's Day and Father's Day into one and took them all to the Neil Diamond concert? Well, that's exactly what we did and last night was the night.

We headed for St. Paul, as that's where the concert was scheduled to play, and started the night at Great Waters, a local brew pub. There were eight of us around the table and between appetizers and the main meal, we managed to sample many of their beers.

The sky had been cloud-covered all day, but as our server cleared away our dinner plates, blue was showing overhead. We paid up and decided to stroll through downtown St. Paul.

We ended up in the lobby of the St. Paul Hotel, a posh place poised to host the biggest of big spenders when the Republican convention rolls in to town in just one month's time. But we weren't staying the night, we were simply looking for coffee and dessert and they obliged, of course.

And finally it was time for Neil. He put on quite a show, singing just a few tunes from his new album but mostly sticking to his oldies and goodies. He encouraged hearty audience participation with Sweet Caroline, Song Sung Blue, Forever in Blue Jeans, Cracklin' Rose and America.

So great are this songs, however, that the crowd hardly needed prompting to join in. Being the entertainer that he is, Mr. Diamond probably learned long ago that it's useless to stop people from singing along. Better to let them join in and feel a part of the show.

And feel a part of the show I did, even though I was on the "young" side of the average audience age. But music enthusiasts always say that music transcends language and culture. And if it's really good music, it can even transcend generations.