“Neil Diamond was an international superstar by 1976, but nothing prepared him quite for the reception he met when he arrived for concerts in Australia and New Zealand. There are crowds as far as the eye can see during this Sydney show, originally broadcast on nationwide TV, and they eat up Diamond’s time-tested schtick from minute one of the faux-Afropop “Soolaimon.” The artist and his band are in full mid-’70s regalia here, with plenty of unbuttoned shirts, jewelry and feathered hair, but the sensitive pop/rock is a world away from the punk explosion about to occur back at home and in the United Kingdom. Diamond himself wrestled with being a man out of time, which is amply demonstrated in the fascinating TV interview included as a bonus here. Chain-smoking under hot studio lights and rarely resembling the confident pro he is onstage, Diamond reveals his struggles to understand his fame and why he took a two-year hiatus to put his life back in order. “Solitary Man,” indeed. —Jonathan Cohen”
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