A Finn-tastic night in New Plymouth
One of these days, Dr Ashley Bloomfield and his scientists will work out exactly what Neil Finn is made of, convert it into pills, and hand them out to the populace.
Nearly 30 years after Crowded House last performed at the TSB Bowl of Brooklands, on April 11, 1992, they returned on Saturday night to play for more than 12,000 fans, and Finn appeared to be ageing at a slower speed than the rest of us.
His voice was unchanged, his musicianship remained first-rate, and he moved about the stage with real energy. Only the silver hair betrayed his 62 years. (And even that’s in enviably good condition, curse him.)
‘‘Bowl of Brooklands, we made it!’’ he announced after a singalong Weather With You opened the show. ‘‘It’s so good to be here, and with so many memories of amazing nights here for all of us.’’
Finn has been in Taranaki over the years – he was at Womad in 2008 – but this was the first time he had returned to the Bowl stage with Crowded House.
It’s a different band these days. Bassist Nick Seymour, possibly the only man in the Bowl wearing a kilt, is the only other constant in a line-up that now features Finn’s sons Elroy, on drums, and Liam, on guitar, with Mitchell Froom, looking like a university lecturer, on keyboards.
Aspects of the venue had also changed, with seating built out over Bowl Lake for the show.
‘‘This is my first experience of the Bowl of Brooklands without a sea of water in front of me,’’ Finn senior remarked. ‘‘I do have some incredible memories of 20 bedraggled souls looming towards me on the microphone, threatening the health of everyone on stage and their own. Those were the days, eh? There was no such thing as health and safety, was there?’’
He also remembered big brother Tim in a dinghy on the lake during the days of Split Enz, singing Dirty
Creature from a rowing boat.
And that has always been one of the nice things about a Crowded House concert – they give the impression of making it up as they go along, with plenty of chatter among themselves and with the audience between songs. They’re genuinely having fun, and it is infectious.
‘‘Anyone here from Eltham?’’ Finn asked at one point. ‘‘I’ve got cousins in Eltham.’’
In Auckland the previous night they’d had trouble getting people out of their seats. No dancing difficulty in New Plymouth, however, and not just because it was a cold and occasionally windy night (a runaway picnic blanket blew past me). People want to move to these songs they know and love.
‘‘I’ve followed them for a long time,’’ said Irene Smeltz, of Bell Block, who attended with her partner, Roy.
‘‘It’s good to have Kiwi bands here. I like the kind of music that [Finn] plays and writes. I think he’s amazing.’’
The band threw in as many hits as they could within a two-hour show, including Private Universe, Whispers and Moans, and a rocking Locked Out,
which let the younger Finns show exactly why their dad had brought them in, while new songs Whatever You Want and To the Island, from their forthcoming album Dreamers are Waiting, already sounded pleasingly Crowded House-ish.
They ended with Chocolate Cake,
followed by a cover of David Bowie’s Heroes, which paid tribute to the pandemic’s frontline workers for ‘‘making New Zealand pretty much the best place in the world to be right now’’.
‘‘Thank you, New Plymouth, Bowl of Brooklands’’ Finn added, before the band launched into Better be Home Soon, their final song.
‘‘What a glorious place to be on a Saturday night.’’