“Greatest Hits Live”- For an old fart, Neil really has some great moves! 🙂 Anyway, “Greatest Hits Live” has quite a bit of similarity to Hot August Night II with its setlist, but everything that made HAN2 such a stinkeroo (THE SINGING, or more accurately, the SHOUTING) apparently was not a problem at all on “Greatest Hits Live”, which, by the way, has GOOD singing and shouting was kept to a minimum. Neil appears here in the relatively intimate setting of the Aquarius Theater, and obviously had a ball recording this. This video has a little something for everyone- huge hits (“Sweet Caroline”, “America”), rockers n’ stompers (“Cherry Cherry”, “Jungletime”) and of course, Neil’s (in)famous turgid ballads (“September Morn”, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”). Neil had reduced his musical role by this time, and only strapped on the guitar sporadically, and let Richard Bennett and Doug Rhone handle the guitar chores. This gave Neil more freedom to concentrate on his stage moves, which are very entertaining. This contains the most fun-to-watch “Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show” available in his commercial vid catalog. You have to see this one, for his expressions, and the way that he waves his hands around and pumps the crowd. Neil had backed-off on the solemn, brooding intensity of his mid-70’s persona, and cranked up the charm and charisma and smiled a lot on this one. Again, Neil gives us our money’s worth by supplying us with a performance that is NOT a duplicate of anything available on LP or CD. At the end of the tape is the underwhelming video of “This Time” (*groan*), where Neil shows little of the magnetism of his onstage persona. I’d suggest pressing the STOP button when the concert portion is through and skipping “This Time” entirely. If it’s 80’s Neil you want to hear, buy this instead of HAN2, your ears will thank you for it.
