Irish Neil Diamond tribute artist shares how he obtained the singer’s seal of approval.
Ireland’s tribute singer Peter Byrne delights audiences with Neil concerts.
He rose to prominence in Australia as a Neil Diamond tribute singer after a fortuitous encounter in a pub, but Dubliner Peter Byrne now reveals how he nearly passed up the opportunity after a love split.
Sensational performer Byrne, originally from Dublin’s Drimnagh, moved to Sydney with his then-Irish lover in the late 1980s when he was 25.
However, Peter’s ambition of a fresh life was dashed when his relationship broke down. “The girl I was with ran off with somebody,” he told the Sunday World today.
“I was almost ready to pack up and go home. Then, one night, a neighbor of a friend with whom I had moved in persuaded me to join him to a city pub where he was meeting a friend who worked there.
“The friend was singing there from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., and he told me, ‘I detest this work, I’m too old for it; do you want my job?’ He was sixty. He knew I sang, but he had never heard me sing.
“He summoned the manager and told him, ‘This guy is Peter Byrne, and he’s fantastic. I’m resigning; I can’t do these late nights anymore. So the manager offered me a two-week trial.
“I bought a sound system and guitar, and learnt four hours of material, including sing-along tunes. After two weeks, I had the place hopping. I’ve never looked back.
The affable Dubliner, now 62, admits he couldn’t believe his good fortune when his career took off into the stratosphere after he stumbled into the music of Love On The Rocks singer Neil Diamond.
“They talk about the luck of the Irish and I do think it exists,” Peter laughs.
“One of my occupations involved working in a restaurant as a singer and guitarist in the background. One night, a person asked, ‘Do you remember the Neil Diamond song, I Am… I Said?’ I didn’t know it, but I went and learnt it, and when he returned the next week with his wife, I sang it.
“Within four minutes, everyone in the restaurant had stopped eating, glanced up, and went berserk at the end. Afterward, the guy said, “Do you realize how much you sound like Neil Diamond?” You’re so close; just concentrate on the Neil Diamond stuff.’ And that is how it happened.
He went on to establish a successful career as a Neil Diamond tribute artist, performing favorites like Sweet Caroline, Cracklin’ Rosie, and Song Sung Blue while selling out 70 performances per year.
Then, in 1997, Byrne made a major leap ahead by deciding to perform the Diamond songs with a full orchestra.
“In 1997 Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night album was celebrating its 25th anniversary,” Peter recalls for me.
“It was recorded at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles by a 30-piece symphonic orchestra. I decided to pay tribute to the album by hiring my own 30-piece orchestra and hosting a performance in a Sydney venue.
“There were 4,000 people at the exhibition, and that altered everything; it elevated me to a new level. I later performed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Orchestra.It quickly spread throughout Australia.
“I created a product that no one else was offering. No one was saluting with a symphony orchestra anywhere in the world. I was the first person to do it.”
For the first show with an orchestra, Peter contacted Neil Diamond’s management and asked to hire the orchestrations.
“They would not hire them, but they said, ‘We don’t mind if you make your own arrangements.'” “Everything was done ethically.”
The frosting on the cake was meeting Diamond in person and receiving his approval. “I remember the record company ringing me up and asking me would I like to meet him,” claims Peter.
“He was the most amazing man I’d ever met in my life. I saw his show the week before and purchased the program.
“In the middle of the programme there was a photograph of him sitting on a sofa with his two dogs and on the wall beside him was a bronze plaque with the map of Ireland. ‘I got presented with that by the people from Croke Park,’ he told me when I met him.”
Peter has won multiple Australian prizes for his Neil Diamond tribute, and once, after receiving a significant award, he received a personally autographed photo from the American great in the mail.
“It was three years after I met him and he sent me a beautiful photo in the post and it was singed, ‘Congratulations, thanks Peter for the great tribute show,'” he said.
Another personal highlight for Byrne was playing his Neil Diamond presentation at Dublin’s National Concert Hall with the RTE Concert Orchestra. “That was a special moment, one of the biggest of my life,” he remembers.
Peter credits his father with instilling in him a love of music and performance, as well as Neil Diamond. “My father always says the day he bought me a guitar when I was 12 to keep me off the streets and out of trouble was probably a mistake because the books then went out the window,” Peter recounts with a laugh.
Back in Australia, Peter, who found love with an Australian woman and is married with three children, also hit the limelight after emerging winner on an episode of the reality TV show, Come Dine With Me.
“I did a simple meal of pork fillets with mash, and my granny’s bread and butter pudding loaded with Baileys for dessert,” he shares. “The producers requested me to add some mystery to the food for the other candidates. So I labeled the main dish ‘pork fillets with praties,’ and they had no notion the praties were potatoes.”
