I know there are some Neil Finn fans on the forum, and I wanted to report that the 2003 tour kickoff I witnessed last night at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. was a terrific show and bodes well for a wonderful tour. Neil was in very good spirits and excellent voice, and his band was tight but with a nicely elastic feel too. The bass player was especially noteworthy as he switched between standup acoustic and electric 5-string all night long. (The acoustic bass became a drum as well on a lovely jam version of "Pineapple Head.") The set featured songs from Neil's excellent recent release One All, but there were also several songs from Try Whistling This and, as a specially nice surprise, a good selection of songs from his Crowded House days as well. Neil did a solo piano rendition of "The World Where You Live" that featured the entire club in a moving singalong. For "Fall At Your Feet," he actually taught us all a harmony obbligato on the spot and had us sing that to his melody vocal. Other cool bits included two blokes from the audience volunteering to sing backup; Neil took them up on it, and when they requested "Weather With You" he agreed despite the fact it wasn't in the set list. The resulting performance was fun and very musically satisfying. There was another funny moment when Neil took a homebrew demo CD from an admirer down front and had the sound man play the beginning of a track from it. Said it sounded pretty good, though he threatened to "sue" because the title was "Mean To Me." It was also a great treat to hear him play "Been Knocked Down" and "Something So Strong," the latter being an old favorite from the early days of Crowded House. If you like melodic, thoughtful, smart folk-pop with a great beat, you'll enjoy the show. If you like performers who play "Waterloo Sunset" as part of the entrance music, you'll like the show. If you love the Beatles, this is a great performance by someone who's actually built something of his own on that strong foundation. Go see the show if you can. Here are the tour dates: http://www.frenz.com/neilfinn/tour.html
Thanks for the review. I saw him at the 9:30 last summer and decided to take a pass on last night. Sorry I did!
Thanks for this post. I have to see his show in Denver next month, but funds and time are tight. Wish me luck! "One All" is still in heavy rotation at my house. And I recently bought his "Sessions at West 54th" DVD. Highly recommended if you don't have it yet. Dan C
No, but the Foo Fighters are on Thursday. http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/show_info/index.shtml Damn! Missed Monday's show. Chris Elliott was on. Hrumf. Dan C
Great post Gardo--glad to read from another Finn admirer. Speaking of the 9:30 club, Neil's fan club (Frenz which also includes Split Enz and CH fans) is releasing a VERY limited (500 copies only) disc of last Summer's 9:30 club performance. It's a club offer so, if you are not a member, join soon and you may be able to get one. The dsic will be out in April.
Got it, like it very much indeed. Great to see his son Liam on stage with him; I remember the end of the first CH tour when Liam was a little boy hanging out with his dad, and it's nice to see him all grown up and following a musical career himself. I know his dad must be proud. I also got the "7 Worlds Collide" DVD--haven't had a chance to watch it all yet, but so far it's just superb.
Wow--I'll try to get on the stick on this one. At the beginning of this week's 9:30 show, Neil explained that he had come back to DC so soon because his experience at last summer's 9:30 club had been so wonderful. "And who wouldn't want a little more of that?" he asked. Sounds like that gig was really something special. I really wanted to hang out at the club after the show and try to say hi to Neil, but since my own 12-year-old son was with me and getting a bit sleepy--and us with an hour's drive to get back home--I thought I'd better go. Alas! I was able to talk to Neil a couple of times during those early CH days, and it'd have been nice to say hello after 15 years. He's certainly someone who's worked hard for his success, and deserves every bit of it.
I'm joining the fan club ASAP, thanks for the tip! Hopefully there will be some left. If not, I'm sure fans will get other goodies. I need to get the "7 Worlds Collide" DVD too. Unless the stars align in some amazing way, it doesn't look like I'll make the Denver show. Anyone else planning on going? Please post a review. Dan C
Dan, you are correct. The club does offer some exclusive discs like this. Currently, they have several live Crowded House discs taken from various shows from 1991-1996. The sound quality is excellent on all of the club discs that I own. Last year, Neil's fan club put out a great limited edition disc called "One On One" recorded in England in the Spring of '01. The band was similar to the core band on "7 Worlds Collide"--a must see DVD. On the disc, they did a spontaneous "Daytripper" which is quite funny and in honor of office and club director Peter Green's birthday, they played "Birthday" and it shows up on the disc as a bonus cut. This shot is from a Boston show I saw last July at The Paradise. It was an amazing performance! If you have a chance to see him on this tour, go. He's in Boston again tomorrow night and, sadly, I can't make this one.
Hmm: maybe the '93 boot I just bought isn't really a boot at all, but from the fan club. It's a terrific performance with an impromptu rendition of "Born On The Bayou" that rocks mightily. Y'know, Paul Hester's drumming was one thing I did miss at the Neil Finn gig Tuesday night. He had a swinging, almost loping style that made the music roll along in a unique fashion. Dab hand with the brushes, too.
Quite a talented pop singer/songwriter. I wish someday instead of burying the hooks he would just write an unabashed pop album.
Gardo, the '93 performance you're talking about is indeed a bootleg... but you're right, it's a great performance. Unlike many who have a preference for the Woodface-era Crowded House, I felt like they were at their peak once Mark Hart joined the band and they released Together Alone. If you like that performance, you should definitely try to find a copy of Crowded House's appearance at the Fleadh festival.
Hopefully, they will someday release the final Crowded House show from the Sydney Opera House in 1996. I have a bootleg taken from the board tapes and it is fantastic. In the Finn pipeline for release in the not to distant future: A second Finn Brothers album. Neil and Tim have written the songs for the disc and recording is set to resume after Neil's current tour. A Crowded House box set has been rumoured for a couple of years. Allegedly, it will be out late in 2003 but I'm not holding my breath. There will be a more comprehensive Crowded House DVD at some point. According to Peter Green at Frenz, the recent "Dreaming" videos disc is only the beginning. There is a new Split Enz DVD that has gotten great reviews for content and fidelity. I am waiting for Neil's next studio album. It's been almost two years since "One Nil" (in America, the reconfigured "One All") and I've read that he has already recorded a bunch of new tunes for it. Since nearly three years lapsed between "Try Whistling This" and "One Nil", maybe we'll have to wait until after the new "Finn Brothers" disc. If you are a Finn fan but have not acquired the first "Finn Brothers" disc from 1996, get it. It is so good, it could have been the next Crowded House album. I'm attaching an article from yesterday's Boston Herald Finn's fans to warm his heart on chilly U.S. tour by Sarah Rodman Friday, January 31, 2003 The average high temperature in Auckland, New Zealand in February is 73 degrees. Yet for some reason, Neil Finn has chosen to leave the sunny climes of the Middle-earth stand-in to tour the United States in the dead of winter. The motivation for such insanity was the immense pleasure Finn and his fans enjoyed when he toured here last summer. ``It was an unusually joyous three weeks, and I would say for many reasons,'' Finn says on the phone from New Zealand. ``But the main one being the response and the feeling in the rooms was unbelievable really, as it definitely was in Boston.'' Finn and his band played an ecstatic two-hour show at the Paradise in July that included music from all phases of the singer-songwriter's career, including chestnuts from his tenure with the groundbreaking new wave-art-prog band Split Enz, the highly polished pop of Crowded House and his own recent well-crafted solo albums, including last year's ``One All.'' ``It was very sweaty in that room,'' Finn recalls with a chuckle of the sold-out gig. Fans can expect to work up a little more perspiration tomorrow as Finn and company - including keyboardist-fiddler Lisa Germano and former Soul Coughing bassist Sebastian Steinberg - move up to the roomier confines of Avalon. As someone who has played stadiums throughout the world with his previous band, Finn says he's perfectly content to play smaller venues these days. ``I prefer it when you can see the whites of their eyes all the way to the back,'' he says, adding, ``600 people can seem just as intense and inspiring as 6,000.'' He's also pleased with the commercial fortunes, modest though they may be, of ``One All.'' A smart album filled with equal measures of melancholy and contentedness and eminently hummable melodies, ``One All'' features assistance from Sheryl Crow, Germano, Wendy and Lisa and Jim Keltner. ``It's not like my record is burning up the charts,'' says Finn with a laugh, ``but I do sense that there has been a good amount of buzz and groundswell generated from the tour that I did last time around - albeit in certain pockets of the country - so who knows, stranger things might happen, I might actually have my day.'' If he does, Finn will undoubtedly have been helped by Triple A radio and the larger listening public's embrace of a new clutch of male singer-songwriters, including his opening act, Rhett Miller. He's encouraged that these younger men are breaking through. ``It is good to know that despite the music industry's best efforts to standardize and define us all, that people are not as simple as they're made out to be and that there is the incredible experience of finding people who actually listen to Triple A and modern rock or classical music and death metal,'' Finn says with a laugh. ``I'm a supporter of anything in the music business that doesn't operate within the genres in very clear and defined ways. I think underneath the industry's efforts to standardize us all, there's always shifting and pushing and pulling, and your really hard-core music fan is seeking good music out, I hope.'' --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is that Split Enz DVD available in the US?! Wasn't the final Crowded House DVD released in Australia and the UK? Thanks Dan C
I have passed on this many times. I have heard and read from several Finn fans that this performance was crap. ALSO, Neil cancelled a RARE Calgary appearence to do the Sessions show. Many here that had purchased ticket for that show including me, were P*SSED. It's superb. I have the DVD. The performances and sound are very good, but the video itself is very poor. Looks like a volunteer crew from "Cable 10" taped it. When I put the DVD in, I tend to just listen to it, rather than watch it. _____________________________________________________ SO Neil's Canadian dates willl again only be taking him to Toronto and Vancouver. A good friend of mine's wife works for Network Records. She's told us on more than one occasion that they can't seem to get Neil to play other cities such as Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. Odd. I have many fond memories of hanging out with and seeing Split Enz 3 times in Winnipeg in between 1980 and 1982. One time a couple of us took the whole band and manager Nathan Brenner to the famous Walker Theartre in Winnipeg (back then it was still a movie theatre, Cineplex-Odeon) to see Conan The Barbarian. Then another time my friend Pam and I were driving around town in my old Plymouth with Tim Finn in the back seat. Tim had had a beer or two. He was very funny. Great memories. I saw Crowded House here in Caglary once, and they played here 2 or 3 times during their heyday. Come on Neil. Remember your roots. Remember who supported you in the early days. Not just Toronto and Vancouver, but all of Western Canada.
The Split Enz DVD is only available in New Zealand and Australia. It's region 0, but it's PAL. I'm thinking of buying one as one of my DVD players is "all-regions". Here are the contents of the DVD. Split Enz DVD (2002 AUS Festival Mushroom 335828) Site And Sound: BBC 1977 Live (15 min) Enz With A Bang: The Farewell Concert Tour, Auckland 1984 (30 min) Spellbound "the documentary" (45 min) Enz In Pictures: Photo Gallery (58 pictures) Poster Gallery Interactive discography Picture format: 4:3 Region code: All regions PAL Disc format: DVD 9 dual layer Total duration: 3hrs approx Audio: Dolby digital stereo 2.0 18 digitally remastered video clips [editor's note: plus another video clip as a hidden feature] (70 min) Late Last night Sweet Dreams Lovey Dovey Bold As Brass My Mistake I See Red Give It A Whirl I Hope I Never I Got You One Step Ahead History Never Repeats Dirty Creature Message To My Girl Straight Old Line I Walk Away Things Hermitt McDermitt Jamboree Pioneer/Six Months In A Leaky Boat Project Director: Peter Green Assistant Project Director: Mark Goulding DVD Consultant: Noel Crombie With thanks to: Split Enz - Tim Finn, Philip Judd, Eddie Rayner, Wally Wilkinson, Jonathan Michael Chunn, Emlyn Crowther, Noel Crombie, Miles Golding, Robert Gillies, Neil Finn, Nigel Griggs, Malcolm Green, Mike Howard, Div Vercoe, Geoff Chunn, and Paul Hester Geeze. We should have included Split Enz in the recent thread about what band had the most members.
This concert was aired on PBS at one point, or at least it was on my local station; I happened onto it about halfway in and got only part of it on tape, but what I got was fantastic all right. Very emotional night for all those fans. Thanks for the great newspaper article!
I meant the performance is superb. The sound is also very nice. The video is nothing special, perhaps even a little below average for a live shoot, but it's certainly watchable. Truth to tell, I'm not paying much critical attention to it; the music pretty much has all my attention. The video is simply a nice bonus. I also have "Sessions from West 54th" and like it very much. I was unaware some other Finn fans thought it was crap. I've seen a good bit of praise for it. Sounds like the Calgary fans might have a little edge on their judgment here.
You are welcome Gardo--glad you enjoyed the article. Neil always gives very insightful and intelligent responses to questions. He's probably heard them all a billion times but he is always very gracious. Hey Miike--just so you know--the "Sessions at West 54th" DVD is not a crap performance. On the contrary, one of the things I love about this DVD is the band interaction. Neil's performance is breathtaking and his band at the time (including his son on second guitar) is really wonderful. The only criticism that I have heard or read is about the studio audience, not Neil or the band. They (the audience) seem very sedated and this may explain why Neil comes across as being a little more serious on this show. The sound is spectacular as well. Most spots sell the DVD for under $15.00. Do yourself a favor and get it while you still can. Neil would never have allowed it to be released if his performance was "crap". You'll like it--I promise!
