Quiet and shy — until ‘Surreal Neil’ arrives

The doors to Bimbo’s 365 Club didn’t open until 8 p.m. on Saturday, but by 7:45, there was already a line of fans waiting to get in to see Super Diamond, the world’s most beloved Neil Diamond tribute band. Several men wore sequined shirts; a few women dressed for a night in Vegas. They were all ages, all colors, and they all looked really excited even though Super Diamond frontman “Surreal Neil” wouldn’t take the stage for another 2½ hours.

Randy Cordeiro is and isn’t “Surreal Neil.” “I’m up there acting when I’m Surreal Neil,” Cordeiro said. “It’s definitely not me, but it’s fun.”

Cordeiro co-founded Super Diamond 24 years ago in San Francisco. He is quiet and shy and pauses a long time before answering questions. I couldn’t imagine how his Zen energy would later emerge on stage belting cheesy Neil Diamond hits.

Once the doors were opened, Cordeiro met me near the bar, announcing his arrival by quietly singing the Kiss song “Beth.” Then he said, “So, you wanna come backstage?”

He’s not one of those people who fills empty silences. He talks when he feels like it. I continued rambling as Cordeiro wordlessly walked me up a flight of stairs to the dressing rooms above the Bimbo’s stage. He offered me a drink from a glass-doored refrigerator that hummed at the back of the brightly lit dressing room, next to a pot of cold coffee, a bottle of vodka and a few trays of cold cuts.

“Do you have a rider?” I joked, asking about the lists bands and celebrities often send to venues in advance, requesting their dressing rooms be stocked with things like all-brown M&Ms or bark-scented candles.

Cordeiro paused, then said, “Yes, we have a rider. We’re an internationally touring band.”

The 51-year-old Dogpatch resident, who also performs under the name Tijuana Strip Club, introduced me to his bandmates as each wandered in. Many had family in tow.

Super Diamond is an inherently San Francisco band, and Bimbo’s is their home base. The band plays different venues nearly every weekend, often in Southern California or on the East Coast. They’re a full-time, touring Neil Diamond tribute band, and when they’re onstage in the Bay Area, even after 24 years, the house is packed with the band’s friends.

I sat nervously near the cold coffee, trying to stay out of the way, but there were no wild rock ’n’ roll antics in Super Diamond’s preshow routine. The six men in the band have an easy, irreverent, cool-dad energy, treating their very fun job with professionalism and without much ego. They had a drink, maybe two — but that was it. “No one’s on heroin,” guitarist Chris Collins joked.

The only thing the members of Super Diamond seemed picky about was the distinction between a cover band and a tribute band. Super Diamond is a tribute band. They perform mostly Neil Diamond songs, but mash-ups and remixes inspired by musical heroes also make it into the show. No one’s impersonating Diamond. “So it’s all Neil Diamond songs, but it’s not all Neil Diamond,” Cordeiro said. “This way, we have some artistic creativity that we can have fun with.”

At 10:15 I followed the band down the stairs and watched them prepare to take the stage. The music started, the lights began to flash, and Bimbo’s overhead disco ball started to twirl. Hundreds were already pushed up against the stage, pumping their cocktail-fueled fists for Super Diamond, a band so popular that it appeared on David Letterman’s show.

Cordeiro was gone. “Surreal Neil” had taken the stage, singing, dancing and storytelling in one of the band’s six brand-new sequined stage shirts designed and made in San Francisco. His voice was startlingly similar to that raspy, kind Diamond voice we all know, but it was all somehow cooler than the Neil I remembered from the radio. Super Diamond does Neil Diamond without any irony, but with loving enthusiasm — and a lot of practice.

If Super Diamond is cheesy, it’s a very delicious, award-winning West Marin brie. It’s a good cheese, one that even the most ardent of lactose-intolerant cheese haters will agree is pretty solid. The band has created an institution out of something that could so easily have been silly and temporary. “We’re grateful,” Cordeiro said. “We’re lucky.”

“It’s all Neil Diamond songs, but it’s not all Neil Diamond. That way, we have some artistic creativity we can have fun with.” Randy Cordeiro, frontman, Super Diamond