| Sept.07 Cover - Crowded House |
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| Written by J.R. Taylor | |
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Page 1 of 3  Don't Stop NowCrowded House Breaks Its Silence "My wife," says Neil Finn, "keeps telling me that more than two hours is too much for anyone." That would be a funnier opening line from Sting. Instead, Finn is discussing the live show of Crowded House, who are certainly the most important of this year's returning '80s acts. It's the day after a truly great Crowded House concert in a Masonic Lodge in Manhattan. You might be able to track footage down on the internet, since it was taped for some kind of show that features artists in offbeat intimate venues. Those are usually the kinds of shows where people pretend to have had a privileged good time. After all, the place couldn't have had more than 200 people watching a band that would later be playing a much larger Manhattan theater. In this case, though, Crowded House put on an unforgettable show that - despite Finn's wife being in attendance - probably broke the two-hour mark as the band improvised a medley of "Spill The Wine/Tomorrow Never Knows." "I thought it was a showy move," laughs Finn, "until I remembered I didn't know the words to 'Tomorrow Never Knows.'" That's okay. He faked it admirably. More importantly, the crowd didn't have to fake their enthusiasm for the plentiful songs from the new Time On Earth. The reunion album is catchy enough that dedicated fans might even have found the older tunes to be a distraction. As far as American airplay, the Aussie/New Zealand act had all their big hits off the self-titled 1986 debut. "Don't Dream It's Over" and "Something So Strong" were saved for the first encore of the NYC show. That may not have been a tease. Crowded House had plenty of other charming pop hits on the worldwide stage. The moodier Temple of Low Men bombed in '88, but things got better when Neil's collaboration with brother Tim - his older sibling from their days in Split Enz - became Crowded House's first big comeback. 1991's Woodface spawned hits everywhere but in the States. The band would still bow out with the brilliance of 1993's Together Alone. That's the one where multi-instrumentalist Mark Hart replaced Tim and joined Neil, bassist Nick Seymour, and drummer Paul Hester. The band's last Manhattan concert of the '90s ended up being on the day that Kurt Cobain died. |
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