Neil Diamond: Hot August Night NYC Live from Madison Square Garden (2008) Blu-ray 1080p
Video: Blu-ray 1080p AVC MPEG-4 | 02:03:44 | 29.3 GB
Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (48kHz/4469kbps/24-bit), English LPCM 2

Hot August Night/NYC benefits from a largely crisp AVC encoded image delivered in full 1080p in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. This is a great looking live concert, bathed in nicely full blue light a lot of the time. What may bother some videophiles is the lack of really brilliant color erupting from the screen. Diamond is clad in black, albeit spangled, and his backup singers are similarly dressed. While the band has at least a little variety of palette going for it, largely purple, there's simply not a lot here to wow an ardent videophile. But what is here is a completely solid and great looking effort. Detail is exceptional, and depth of field can also be pretty amazing at times, with people in the audience far in the background completely visible with Neil up front. Though muted, the palette here is very lifelike and has a nice, if subtle, variety to it. If you're looking for two hours of knock your socks off visuals, this concert isn't it. If you're looking for a nicely accurate recreation of what the original concert looked like, this does a remarkably good job.

Two excellent sound mixes are included, a Dolby True HD 5.1 and a standard LPCM 2.0 fold down. Both of these sounded great, with crisp fidelity and excellent range. Diamond's gravelly voice cuts through clearly and all the lyrics are easily heard. The 5.1 mix places the band nicely directionally, with Diamond typically front and center. Therefore you will at times clearly hear the brass emanating from the left channel and the backup singers from the right. Balance over all is quite good, though occasionally I personally wish the brass had been pumped a bit higher in the mix. The backup vocals also occasionally disappear into the overall sound mass, but are on the whole more easily heard than some of the instruments at times. Diamond, however, despite his advancing age, sounds remarkably nimble for a soon to be septuagenarian, and these two tracks admirably capture his verve and energy throughout this live performance.

Tracklist:

1. Holly Holy
2. Street Life
3. Beautiful Noise
4. Love On The Rock
5. Play Me
6. Cherry Cherry
7. Thank The Lord For The Night Time
8. Home Before Dark
9. Don’t Go There
10. Pretty Amazing Grace
11. Crunchy Granola Suite
12. Done Too Soon
13. Brooklyn Road
14. I Am… I Said
15. Solitary Man
16. Kentucky Woman
17. Forever In Blue Jeans
18. Sweet Caroline
19. You Don’t Bring Me Flowers
20. Song Sung Blue
21. I’m A Believer
22. Man Of God
23. Hell Yeah
24. Cracklin’ Rosie
25. America
26. Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show