Neil Diamond`s triumphant first Australian tour was captured on camera for the Nine Network and televised across Australia at the end of the tour. Now it is available on DVD. Well, at least outside of Australia.
‘Thank You Australia’ was an idea Diamond had to thank the Australian’s for great first time down under but it didn’t expect to see it released now.“It came out because some people said `we want to have a DVD of a concert you did in Australia in 1976’, Neil tells Undercover News. “I didn`t really understand why we should go back that far but then I looked at it and thought maybe that it was an historical piece”.
Diamond wanted to film the last show of the tour and this was the result. “I had a lot of fun doing that concert,” he says. “It was my first tour of Australia and it was a huge tour. It was sold out and I asked if it were possible for a last show of that tour, which I believe was done in Sydney, to be televised throughout the country live and I was able to do that. That is basically what this DVD is. It is just a way of saying “thankyou everybody and being so great. Lets have some fun tonight and involve the whole country”. People in the outback and the coast and all over that enormous country had a chance to be there, I just wanted to include everybody”.
When he was asked if it could be released on DVD, he had to think about it for a while. “They came to me and asked if they could put it out and I said, “I guess so”. I am still not sure,” he said. “It is a little ragged as a TV special by today`s standards. It was done live. But it does have a heart to it. It has a sense of humour to it that I like very much”.
So how does 67-year old Neil feel about seeing 35-year old Neil back on TV. “It is kind of odd seeing myself 30 years ago having fun up there and still doing it when I thought that that would probably represent the twilight of my career. I had been performing for 10 years at that point but here we are some 30 odd years later. It is a curiosity. I just said, “what the heck, put it out and maybe some people will enjoy it.”
Neil Diamond’s ‘Thank You Australia’ DVD is now out through Eagle Rock Entertainment apparently everywhere in the world ... EXCEPT Australia.
