East Meadow native Robert Neary on his homecoming to Eisenhower Park

East Meadow native, Robert Neary is returning to his roots, this time in different form. He brought “So Good! The Neil Diamond Experience,” his self-made tribute show to the stage at Eisenhower Park on Aug. 17.

After growing up in East Meadow, Neary’s career took him from coast to coast. He spent two semesters at Nassau Community College and then, as a 19-year-old, hit the road moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of acting on television.

“One of acting professors asked me to stay after during one of the classes and said to me, ‘What are you doing here?’ He goes, ‘You need to be out in Los Angeles.’ I said that’s my goal, and that was it, that pushed me even further,” Neary said.

Within a year in Los Angeles, he booked television roles, then later a co-starring spot in the film “Teen Wolf Too.”

He then went on to join the “Chippendales” show, a male revue, making his way around Europe. The next step for his career, following another stint in Los Angeles was singing in Nashville.

The stage called Neary’s name again and he moved to New York playing a lead replacement in Smokey Joe’s Café, a musical revue, where he met his wife, Natasha.

“I was a shimmy girl and he sang ‘Teach Me How to Shimmy’ and that’s how we met,” Natasha said.

The couple later moved to California where Neary again pursued television until taking the stage again in 2001, in Elton John and Tim Rice’s “Aida.”

In 2012, he suffered a severe neck injury and experienced levels of anxiety like never before. Neck surgery helped Neary reclaim his livelihood, picking up guest starring roles and returned to the Broadway stage for a steady paycheck.

He was inspired by the Neil Diamond musical. “A Beautiful Noise,” and after some encouragement from his family members, he created his own tribute show, “So Good! The Neil Diamond Experience”.

“I had no idea how I was going to put this together,” Neary said. “I was just like ‘Okay, I think I can do this.’”

At a Halloween party in 2019, Neary found the band that he wanted to back him in this new endeavor, The Mystic.

“This guy in the audience wanted to come up and sing and I’m like, ‘Here we go again,’” Sam Bello, head of The Mystic, said. “He played me an audio of him doing a Neil Diamond song and it was uncanny, I almost didn’t believe him. I said, ‘If this is you, I’m interested.’”

The Mystic  started in a garage in Queens. Bello and his brother, retired New York City firefighters, brought the act to Long Island where they played at weddings, bars, restaurants and other venues.

“I’m playing with some monster players,” Bello said. “My guitarist is Dennis DelGuauido; he’s been on the road with Billy Joel and Elton John. My base player George has got a resume a mile long. And then my singer, Jill Gioia, she was on that show, ‘Rockstar Supernova’ a few years ago and she was a finalist.”

Despite their plans to get the Neil Diamond tribute show off the ground as soon as possible, the pandemic stopped them. They used the extra time before their first performances to perfect their act. Neary also studied everything there was to know about Neil Diamond to best honor his character in the shows.

“I speak in third person and I speak tribute and I tell stories, but I know so much about Neil Diamond’s life that I feel the songs, knowing when he wrote them, what he was going through,” Neary said.

The tribute show took off as soon as it could hit the stage and has since performed in over 40 venues and 30 cruise ships, selling out shows. He takes pride in the rapport built with his audience.

“They talk to me and tell me, you have brought me back, or what a great night of memories, or my mom loved Neil Diamond, she would have loved the show,” Neary said. “They’re so grateful — they’re so thankful.”

The group will bring the Neil Diamond experience to East Meadow, in line with Neary’s 40 high school reunion. They’ll be taping the show in order to create a live concert DVD, including how the show came about. Neary anticipates this being one of their biggest performances.

“I think it’s once I put the jacket on and I’m with the guys, I know how tight we are and how great the show is and the response we’re going to get,” Neary said. “It just becomes a real Neil Diamond experience.”