Venue:
Spark Arena, Auckland
Date: 21/03/2021
The recent thread on stand up comedy made me think of Neil Finn. It is rare for a musician of his quality to also be a very funny storyteller. One of the reasons he’s so likeable is that he’s probably just sung an astonishing song perfectly just moments before. He had me at Weather with You – a show stopper that’s actually their show starter!
No? Well it would be funny if great-lafff Neil said it.
Mitchell Froom was tickling the ivories and playing various strange instruments from time to time. He produced the first three CH albums and was briefly married to Suzanne Vega. After Don’t Dream it’s Over, Neil commented that his organ playing makes the song and no one can do it like him. These affectionate touches are peppered throughout the show – not least due to his two boys being in the band. One is playing lead guitar next to Neil and the other is at the back of the stage on drums. He’s the distant son, I guess. All right. Is this thing on?
Nick Seymour is a kilt-wearing Edge lookalike who athletically bounces around as he plays bass. At one point he moans about not having as much attention from the tech guy. “You’ve only got four strings” said Neil, ending the debate.
So yes there’s a lorra lorra laughs but the songs steal the show. The quintessential “I know this one!” band, you can’t help getting swept away. His voice is crystal clear with no forgivable rough edges in a live setting.
The encore gave us a surprise – a really rather good version of “Heroes” . It made me reflect on many things as they went through it but the visuals began to have a COVID theme, highlighting frontline workers of different kinds as playing cards interspersed with images of heroic figures flicked over. The Queen card was a drawing of Jacinda in a face mask and – just as the song reaches its peak – the King card is Bowie. The image is blown up large and remains in place as a crowd of 5,000 sing “We can be heroes” . At this point my wife laughed at me because I had lost it emotionally, blubbing like a big fat baby. I’d only done this once before at Kraftwerk – but this was full waterworks. Bastards.
So – yeah, it was all right.
The audience:
40s, 50s mainly but young people were certainly there as this band are National treasures in two countries.
It made me think..
Their songs aren’t straightforward – there’s always a distinctive bit, a change of key or extended verse that keeps you guessing.
A new one, On the Island, is a corker but you may not take to it straight away. More straightforward is Whatever you Want (not that one) which is more immediate and catchy.
You jammy Kiwi bugger. Most consistently brilliant songwriter of the past 30 years? Quite possibly. Best run of albums from the get go? Hardly any lessenings along the way. Most wonderful collection of memorable tunes since the, you know, since them? Easily arguable. Enigmatic mutterings lost in the fade out to Distant Sun? No idea – kept me guessing for nearly thirty years. Thirty years. What an achievement. Glorious band.
I know I sound like a total fanboi but I didn’t buy their records at the time – I always liked them though. Another reason for the emotional response was the 2020 thought that there may not be gigs like that ever again. It was great to be back.
They sound fresh, they obviously love what they do and the new songs are really good.
By then I assume you mean The Lurkers.
My first knowledge of the House was hearing a radio interview where they were indeed very funny. I was predisposed to like them just from that.
Radiohead, surely?
*explodes*
I disagree… Thom Yorke’s habit of answering every question with armpit farts became irritating after the first couple of hours.
There is absolutely no reason why I didn’t hoover up everything they ever did once I’d heard “Weather With You”. They really should meet my brief on every requirement. The Southern Hemisphere’s Del Amitri. Sometimes there’s just too much music and not enough time. Your post has sent me to Spotify for a listen. I’ll go with the main playlist first. After that should I go chronological? It’s lovely that you’ve been to a gig and you had such a great time. Great review…
I did think of the Dels a couple of times during the set – particularly Better Be Home Soon, possibly due to the Scottish football song they did (“Don’t come home too soon’).
I’ve gone to Spotify as well – after the greatest hits comp (Recurring Dream) I plumped for Woodface which seems to have more high quality songs than seems fair.
I used to like Del Amitri a little bit until Justin Currie slagged `Forever Changes` off. Bastard! I`ve never forgiven him and when I saw them play in Liverpool I gave him a bollocking he`ll never forget.
I think he’s mellowing….
That`s a bit of a contradictory statement, but maybe…
Start with Together Alone Dave.
Must admit, after seeing Neil Finn in CH, with his brother and solo many times, that I’m disappointed in how he sacked Matt Sherrod and, after many more years service, the excellent Mark Hart. But I guess I would still go and see them, cos Finn’s a genius, if an unsentimental one.
Are we sure Hart was sacked? Or just unavailable?
He announced it on Twitter that NF had informed him his services were not required any more in 2020. Hart was a gentleman about it, but expressed his surprise. Could be that that stint in Fleetwood Mac gave Finn a notion about band as ‘brand’.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MarkHartMusic/status/1162499917597704192
I too am very envious and a little surprised that they are arranging proper concerts in NZ.
Does Mitchell Froom now live in your neck of the woods or did he fly in just to play the gig?
Neil Finn is a stupendous song-writer. Hope he gets back to Sweden one day!
Why surprised? Covid-19 doesn’t exist in New Zealand.
Was the cameraman desperate for a leak or something?
No idea about Mitch – I think he lives in the US. That footage doesn’t show the backdrop visuals. That’s what done me in I think.
He still lives in LA.
Regarding Mark Hart, he was essentially Mitchell’s dep, given the job when the production work took off after a couple of less successful attempts to fill the seat – Eddie Rayner and Mike Gubb. It was always meant to be Froom.
That’s exactly the words Neil used come to think of it – Mitchell on the organ, “as it was always meant to be”
…and also not the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=805jKHk8CWk
Lucky you! Saw Neil Finn playing with Fleetwood Mac back in the old days (2019?), best song of the night was “Don’t Dream it’s Over”
Lovely review. I have a ticket for Manchester in July and desperately hope it will happen but am pretty sure it won’t.
Nice review BC, not on a par with 5 fuckwits and Crowded House but a good un.
I must have a genetic flaw as, try as I might, I have never gotten in to the Don’t Dream It’s Over hitmakers. Even a greatest hits album has me bored. Odd as I really liked Split Enz, more so pre Neil, so maybe that’s a sign.
Gonna give em another spin today.
Yes that 5 fuckwits review is a classic. One of the funniest things I have read.
I have tickets for Brum in June – rearranged from last year. Not cancelled yet so who knows?
Thank you! Nice to know it’s still remembered fondly 10 years on.
I laugh just thinking about it @Chiz.
BC. Had a solid day listening to Crowded House – mainly 2019’s Intriguer which I loved- very Beatlesque.
As it happens I happened to be dealing with a customer service guy at a super (pension) fund. The term one step at at time got him mentioning The Enz’s One Step Ahead. Next we were into SE V CH ( Both in the Enz camp) Phil Judd’s The Swingers and oh yeah , I got my log in sorted.
Erratum. Been listening to a 2019 deluxe, original 2010.
Extra live tracks are great
I find any discussion about superannuation must veer off-topic occasionally to keep both parties engaged. You sometimes need a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
When I first came to NZ in the late 90s I got quite into Neil’s “Try Whistling This” LP. The title suggests that the songs are more experimental but there’s still some solid melodic numbers in there. I don’t think he can help it.
Lovely review BC. I’m not seeing Neil this time round, but have done so many times – the House, Neil solo, Finn Brothers, the Mac for Neil’s homecoming gig. Not forgetting, of course, the legendary Word Magazine Thames river cruise, where I got to rap with him about McCartney and our shared appreciation of ‘Ram’.
He’s a restless composer is Neil. Outside of the Crowded House albums, I’d recommend his second solo album, One Nil, which was a collaboration with Wendy & Lisa. Also, the communal writing project ‘7 Worlds Collide – The Sun Came Out’ with Johnny Marr, KT Tunstall, Jeff Tweedy and assorted Wilcos and Radioheads.
And yes, it’s emotional being at a proper live show. We are so lucky in NZ, in so many ways. Hard to believe there are people here who still moan about the government’s handling of Covid.
I remember you telling me about that boat trip in London – wonderful.
That was the weird day when Neil Finn – NEIL BLOODY FINN – played support to Steampunk Wille or whatever his name was. Some guy with a banjo and a haircut. I hope his record company paid their bills because that chancer got a lot of coverage out of Hepworth and Ellen.
Didn’t he come on here and threaten to give us all a ruddy good bunch of fives?
Or was that Brian Cox’s wife? Or Monsignor Fray Bentos?
I even bought his bloody CD. Played it once. Luckily, I have also invested in a full set of the fat CH deluxe reissues, which pi$$ all over the banjoberk from a great height.
Are you talking about CW Stoneking or Seasick Steve?
Stovepipe Wiggum. You can’t get seasick on the Thames.
Stoneking. Dreadful row. Wasn’t there but they put him on a cover disc too.
Just noticed that in late 2020, Neil/CH released a couple of sets of live stuff from 92-94 in support of road crews.
https://www.neilfinn.com/journal/2020/12/2/crowded-house-live-92-94-part-1
I was obsessed with CH in the 90s, having discovered them through a Woodface-era bootleg of a show at the Borderline in London (this was when Tim Finn was in the band, and those glorious melodies and harmonies were a revelation). After that I collected every boot CD I could find and every one is different. Not only with different arrangements of the songs, but in the way they mess around within them each night, the spontaneous jams and covers, the crowd participation and the humour.
Together Alone is my favourite, and I’ll never tire of Distant Sun, the perfect pop single. I also have a soft spot for Time on Earth which adds a lovely melancholy to their usually sun-drenched work. Silent House is heartbreaking.
‘Some Fuckwits and Crowded House’ got me a job, and the ultimate ’15 seconds of fame’ moment at a dinner party years later when some guy started to tell it as an anecdote, not knowing the real author was sitting down the table from him.
Lovely @chiz I listened to the Spotify CH playlist this morning and I’m even more staggered that I haven’t looked further before…
On “Fuckwits” is it still available anywhere? I’d love to read it again…
Yes – sane. I was wondering if you might post it again @chiz.
It’s on my long-defunct blog, My Homework Ate The Dog . Remember the days when everyone had to have a blog?
http://davidvisick.blogspot.com/2011/02/some-fuckwits-and-crowded-house.html
Thanks ! Love it. There was a row of people a bit like this sone rows in front of me. Lots of trips to the bar, mid-song group selfies with tongues out and devil horn signs as if they’re at a Napalm Death gig. Too far away from me to care though. They were in their 40s I would say.
Thanks Chiz, I’ll look forward to reading that later…
I’d forgotten how funny that was, Chiz. Tea coming out of my nostrils for the second time.
As the grim anniversary of lockdown is upon us, I ponder: Whither the boofheads?
During this gig-drought I worry about what all these people are doing with their time when they can’t go to gigs and ruin them for other people by getting pissed, talking too loud, constantly getting up to go to the bogs and, most importantly of all, sitting directly in front of you with a Macey’s Parade-style head that obscures absolutely everything on the stage except the bored bloke at the mixing desk (hello @fentonsteve )
Without this valuable social function to fulfil, what are they doing with their evenings? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
I think they’re all on hospital wards. The noise over my two night stay would have woken thr dead. Chap in a bed near mine started a phone call in another language on speaker phone at 2 in the morning. I got out of bed, dragged my IV trolley to his curtains and just said “Mate! You need to stop now” nothing back but a clearly pissed off “sorry, have to go now”. Wanker carried on all day face timing his family and friends. When that stopped he was watching something on his phone, on speakers, no headphones. As for the nurses they just talk incessantly trying to make themselves heard above the din of the doors slamming, trolleys clattering, Drs doctoring and those pesky patients and their phone calls. They only stop when taking your blood pressure at 6am aftet a sleepless night! One spent a whole 12 hour shift telling anyone who’d listen how she didn’t do Sundays as her hubby wouldn’t get his roast dinner. A and E were phenomenal. The wards are where the fuckwits have gone. I came home better but exhausted.
Another language is a mercy. Otherwise you’re listening and probably thinking, Jesus god don’t people have boring conversations?
Oh, god. I remember a bellowed conversation behind me at the Jazz Cafe in Camden. Mother Earth, was it? “Oi, wot does STFU painted on that pole mean?”
Whole audience: “SHUT THE F*** UP!”
I’ve enjoyed the live stuff most. A bit less of the carefully executed harmonies and more swing.
Years and years ago, I was walking down Charring Cross Road and saw a crowd of people gathered on the pavement outside the lane leading to what used to be the Borderline (RIP).
The reason why they were there was that Crowded House where doing an impromptu acoustic gig – presumably for some TV show or video release. While I was there they performed three songs – one of them being Chocolate Cake – with the late Paul Hester happily banging away on a cardboard box.
When I saw this thread, I looked up when CH had played the Borderline on Setlist FM which only listed one gig at the Borderline (in June 1991).
Anyone here know any more about this or whether the footage ever appeared anywhere? (Doesn’t appear to be on YT)
FWIW, while never a huge CH fan, I was like Junior W, big into Split Enz. Maybe It’s time I gave les freres Finn another shot
Just to echo much of the above…
While Woodface has The Hits and is pretty damn fine, Together Alone is a brilliant album too and worth seeking out for those who want a primer. I listened to it last night after reading this thread and it’s still great.
“Some Fuckwits…” remains a hoot.
I also felt bad for Mark Hart when this tour was announced. He has been in the band since the early 90s, so he certainly didn’t appear to be just a hired hand. In fact, I took it so badly that I didn’t buy my Dublin ticket immediately only for the bloody thing to sell out. However, at the rate we’re vaccinating people I expect Neil’s grandkids to be in the band too by the time they wash up on these shores again.
And, of course, like everyone else I’m very jealous of our Kiwi friends going to actual gigs again. They should be made to suffer like the rest of us.
‘Together Alone’ is such a great album. I’ve got it on daily at the moment.