A Finn-tastic night with Crowded House at New Plymouth’s TSB Bowl of Brooklands

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Crowded House perform at the Bowl of Brooklands on Saturday night.

Review: Crowded House, TSB Bowl of Brooklands, March 20

One of these days, Dr Ashley Bloomfield and his scientists will work out exactly what Neil Finn is made of, make 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.

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Neil Finn was enjoying himself on stage in New Plymouth on Saturday night.

His voice is unchanged, his musicianship remains first-rate, and he moves about the stage with real energy. Only the silver hair betrays his 62 years. (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.”

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Finn has been in Taranaki over the years – he was at Womad in 2008 – but this was the first time he has 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 have 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?”

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Nick Seymour, left, and Neil Finn of Crowded House at the Bowl of Brooklands on Saturday night.

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’s always been 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 evening they’d had trouble getting people out of their seats. No such trouble in New Plymouth, and that wasn’t just because it was a cold and occasionally windy night (a runaway picnic blanket blew past me) but because people love these songs.

“I’ve followed them for a long time,” said Irene Smeltz, of Bell Block, who was in the audience with her partner, Roy.

“It’s good to have Kiwi bands here. I like the kind of music that he plays and that he writes. I think he’s amazing.”

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Liam Finn played his heart out at the TSB Bowl of Brooklands, with keyboardist Mitchell Froom behind him.

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 frontline workers during the pandemic 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.”

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