Saturday, 12 October 2024
It was indeed a Crowded House, with seven musicians on stage at the start of the New Zealanders’ two-hour set. Apart from Neil Finn, among the current cast are Liam Finn on guitar and Elroy Finn on drums, and long-standing collaborator Mitchell Froom on keyboards. Otherwise, bassist Nick Seymour, now looking every bit the elder statesman of indie rock, is the sole surviving member. On this tour, they had been joined by two first-rate Greek musicians in Elias Dendias on bouzouki and Tryfon Baitsis on guitar and vocals, who added some colour to the arrangements, and later had a moment in the spotlight, playing a Greek folk tune as a kind of improv in between two of the numbers. There was also an additional percussionist adding some more fill and depth to the rhythms.
The earlier part of the set seemed designed to get the crowd on side, encouraging them to sing along from start with “Weather With You”, “World Where You Live” and “Fall At Your Feet”. Putting that song early in the set was a guaranteed hook, giving everyone something they wanted to hear, early. Newer pieces “To The Island” and “Teenage Summer” stood up well in the company of the older, better known pieces, and there was a sense that the set had been carefully constructed. In fact, contoured might be a better word. “Whispers and Moans” carried on the radio-friendly “Woodface” vibe, but then in the mid part of the set saw Neil Finn behind a piano, for “Black Water, White Circle” which went down well, and “Message To My Girl”, an old Split Enz song. “When You Come” was another familiar piece, which featured in the occasional banter on stage, as Liam Finn joked that his father had written it after Neil’s father had explain to him what a wet dream was, after hearing him singing The Beatles as younger man. The repartee between the band was good value and engendered a more direct connection between the band and the audience, something beyond the music. Was it rehearsed? Hard to tell, though it sometimes seemed to link some of the pieces together a little too well.
The songs from “Together Alone”, the band’s strongest output in the opinion of the undersigned, were dotted through the set, well placed among the others. “Black and White Boy” (“sorry, we just had to do that one”, joked Finn) featured early and was edgy and raucous, faithful to the strange grit of the original. Later we had “Pineapple Head”, which was an unexpected appearance judging by earlier shows. This was good fun, but felt closer in style to the pieces from “Woodface”. “Fingers of Love” on the other hand, was given centre spot, and was every bit as atmospheric as on the record, delicate, full of longing. This was followed by “Private Universe”, which was the most interesting arrangement of any piece, with an extended middle section, lightly improvised, more experimental, and the most daring moment of the evening. In this live arrangement, it had none of the claustrophobia of the original, but the soundscaping made up for this. It was simply excellent and, for the undersigned, it was the only moment of real musical brilliance, beyond the basic quality of the songwriting itself. “Distant Sun”, which featured in the later part of the set was also good, but not outstanding. However, in a setlist with so much “Woodface” in it, it was very good to see so many of these stronger pieces in there. Only “Nails In Your Feet” was missing for the undersigned – they had played that on request earlier in the tour.
“Thirsty” featured all three Finns on acoustic guitars, and you could hear members of the audience talking during this more gentle, almost ironic piece. Had they lost the audience? Perhaps, but that can’t have lasted long, as “Four Seasons In One Day” followed, with more audience participation. The set picked up speed from there on, to the encore, with “The Howl”, easily the most powerful and best delivered of the new songs, a high energy performance of “Distant Sun” which was well received by the crowd, and “Locked Out” which, again, didn’t have quite the edge of the album version, despite Liam Finn’s brutal guitar solo. Finally, we caught our breath with “Don’t Dream It’s Over”, surely the only other obligatory number in any Crowded House set, and it was well delivered and well received before the break.
The encore was “It’s Only Natural”, another “Woodface” standard, the haunting “Some Greater Plan (for Claire)” from the new record, which Finn prefaced with a few remarks about the power of the memories that he and his brother Tim (with whom he wrote the piece) had found in the war diary of their father, and about the importance of music. “Better Be Home Soon” rounded things off, another sentimental crowd-pleaser. Ultimately, it was a performance which was well conducted, well executed by a tight band, with a setlist which had just enough variety of tone and colour to give it some movement, but it took few risks, rising just above a trotting out of songs that are rightly well known and loved. It was not so much understated as delivered. It would be easy to look at the replacement of Mark Hart and Matt Sherrod as the source of the change of dynamics on the stage, but perhaps it is more simply a matter of choice, of musical direction. So, a nice concert, one that few could have left disappointed, but I doubt that it opened anyone’s interior musical doors particularly wide. 4/6
Text: Alex Maines
Photography: Anne-Marie Forker
