So bad, So bad, So bad!

Audience sing alongs suck in general. Nothing wrong with singing along to your favorite band in concert, but when said performer stops midstream to let the audience fill in the blank, then you know said performer has jumped the shark.

So that brings me to my latest subject.

In spite of generally considering myself an "alternative" rock fan, I have confessed here before about some of my guiltiest pop pleasures. And there was no more guilty pleasure than Neil Diamond. Now I'm not professing to be a fan of "Turn on Your Heartlight, " or "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", but I will argue the the pop virtues of "Craklin' Rosie" or "Sweet Caroline" all day. Hey, it's not just me, his songs have been covered by everybody from UB40 to Urge Overkill. And he wrote my favorite Monkees tune, I'm a Believer, which was recently a hit for Smash Mouth.

But Sweet Caroline has been forever ruined for me by the Boston Red Sox. In fact, I'm not even sure it's the Red Sox fault. The original sinner may lie elsewhere. Whoever it was who decided to turn the song into a 7th inning fan singalong anthem should be shot. Play the song, fine. But who is the fuckin' clown who decided it would be cool to turn the volume down every 5 seconds so 35,000 boozed up fans could sing " bop bop bop" and "so good, so good, so good" It's fuckin' horrific.

And now it has spread. Was at our local fireworks show in Beverly last night, and the song come on just before the show. My only thought was, well at least I can hear the non-bastardized version.

But no, comes to the "Sweet Caroline" part, and sure enough the sound goes off. Of course the Beverly crowd wasn't that hip to the Fenway version, so it was mostly just dead air. Is there an actual altered version that has the dead air in it, or are DJs all over New England copping Fenway, and just turning down the volume? Whatever it is, it's fucking horrendous. Like the god damn Macarena or something. I can never stand to hear the fuckin song again now.