I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this. I know it'll upset people who weren't there. But the second night at the Union Chapel was sensational. Tangibly better than the night before. Tim was all so loosened up and acting the goat. He lay on the floor during Mood Swinging Man and did the bicycle in the air.
The music was so spot on perfect it hurt.
The live version of Chocolate Cake. Wow.
The banter was tip-top. Neil had such a bemused look on his face at times, when Tim was just waffling on about boys with flutes on Peruvian train rides.
They read the paper aeroplanes - AND WE WERE TOO FAR BACK THAT NIGHT TO THROW THEM.......
Perhaps the highlight was the look on the brother's faces when they came back in for the second encore and found the entire audience already giving them a standing ovation. They truly looked taken aback. It seemed to give their performances that extra edge because the audience seemed so much more responsive.
The slowed down History Never Repeats was sensational. but then heck it was all sensational. There were foolish people behind me saying in knowledgeable voices that that was the best ever concert given by someone with the surname Finn.
Liam was selling the tshirts - Elroy was just floating around with Sharon. Dave Dobbyn was taking pictures of the brothers and the security guards didn't try andstop him.
Last Day of June was truly imperial in breadth of rendition. Neil got the audience to sing Four Seasons - the volume was loud, believe me. Even louder when the audience spontaneously pre-empted the final shouts of "Chocolate Cake" which then prompted Tim to start walking towards the audience admonishing us by waving his finger.
Hello Sandy Allen got played, which seemed quite remarkable. It came on a paper aeroplane from up above. Neil led off and Tim wallowed round his drum kit for the first verse before weighing in fairly spectacularly.
The Split Enz stuff seemed to go down particularly well.
Just reporting it doesn't seem to do it justice. "You really had to be there" as they say. The noise generated by the audience when demanding the second encore was like nothing I have heard. I think it just bowled them over.
Mark Winpenny
Wednesday was good but Thursday was better!
Tim James said in an earlier post "The banter was there as usual, but in smaller doses" - on Thursday it was there from the beginning in copious amounts. My friend Ingrid, who came from Germany for the shows, grabbed Dougald after the show on Wednesday and he said that they'd had a bad day that day and things would be better on Thursday. I think their encounter with Richard and Judy earlier in the day had taken its toll ! (Richard and Judy host a day time TV show here and I think FINN were slotted between how to knit your cat a ski hat and how to loose 40 lbs for Christmas).
Musically there were less mistakes and they did a few more requests than on Wednesday (Sandy Allen, Persuasion).
No track listing for Thursday but I'm sure someone scribbled the order down and will post it (please).
All in all a very rewarding two nights which tops the last time I saw the Brothers Finn on the "Before and After" acoustic show at the Borderline.
Andrew Byfield
Hi everyone. I have been lurking here for over a year now and I finally decided to post a real message to the list. I went along to the Union Chapel shows on Wednesday and Thursday this week with a few friends and I thought I might tell you all what I thought. This may take a little while so if you're feeling tired at all, or hungry, then sort yourself out now DON'T read this now as you'll either have died of hunger or fallen asleep by the end.
Wednesday night was my first live show of any artist in quite some time, so I was fairly out of practice at appreciating the atmosphere and the idea of a live concert with people I had only heard on albums before. As you already know if you read your list messages, Dave Dobbyn was the support act on both nights. I must say that I had never heard of him before now (sorry, it's a little ignorant of me) but him kicking off with "Lap of the Gods" and then performing such amazing songs as "Wailing" converted me to his sound instantly....I am hooked for life.
I had a front row, centre stage seat for this show so I was about ten feet from both brothers and trust me it was magical. The entrance of the Finns was greeted with much applause by the capacity crowd and the atmosphere was very intense in that small church auditorium and I have to say a little strange at first. But the first few chords of OTS soon put my mind at rest and I got into the swing of the concert very quickly. I won't babble too much about thie wdnesday show too much as it has been well reviewed already. I will say though that I though Tim was a little tired and eager to get the show over with, no more so than when he almost leapt off stage after "Its Only Natural". This is probably understandable since the guys had played Leeds the night before and Dublin on sunday so must have been fairly tired by wednesday. All in all, the songs were performed very well with some good improvisations in many of the songs. However, the audience were not brilliant and the Finns seemed reluctant to talk to the audience or get much of a raport with us at all, but for a few nice touches from Neil before Angels Heap ("Tim was seduced at the age of 12 by a much older woman....). Oh, and we saw Liam selling T-Shirts at the back of the hall too.
Now I had originally planned to only go to the Wednesday night show, but the thought of missing a Finn concert after it being so good on wednesday really got to me by thursday midday so I decided to risk buying a ticket from a scalper at the doors before the show. It ended up costing me 45 pounds from a really suspect guy in the street and I later found out there were return tickets available at the door for 12.50 (Needless to say I was pretty livid about being so ready to part with my hard earned cash). I got in though and that was the main thing.
So, thursday nights show......unbelievable. For anyone who saw the Leeds show or wednesday night's show imagine a show being ten times as good so that you would be on another plane of consciousness at the end of the show and you have a vague idea of how good it was. It was everything the wednesday concert had been but the Finns were witttier, more relaxed, more together musically, more experimental in the songs they played and best of all they REALLY enjoyed performing to us.
The set list was pretty similar to wednesday but for a few extras....and they were amazing extras too.
The show lasted about two hours or so, but some highlights were:
1. A paper aeroplane was flown onto the stage after only three or four songs requesting, we think, a Split Enz song and maybe Chocolate Cake?? Neil obliged saying "A paper object has found its wasy on stage....the person who wrote this has requested two songs.....one of which I think we can oblige and the other....well we COULD do I suppose...."
2. At on point as Neil was strumming away on the intro to one song (I forget which one), Tim suddenly interrupts blatantly and starts talking about Catholisism and Neil got so pissed off with him that he started eating a bar of chocolate and nodding at what Tim was saying as if to say "Yaeh, I'm really interested...can we get back to the song now." Unfortunately the joke backfired when Neil had a mouth full of chocolate and was supposed to be singing the lyrics to the next song....very funny.
3. There was some feedback that was really irritating the brothers during Where is my Soul (I think) and when they'd finished Neil tried to tell the audience that there was a ring (I assume a technical term for feedback??) just as Tim started to introduce Mood Swinging Man. Tim turns to Neil and says:
"Well I was just gonna tell them about our dad and how much of a mood swinging man he was, but NO you tell them about the ring. Well don't mind me, I'm sure they're really interested in the ring Neil" At wich point Neil cracked up laughing.
4. At one point the brothers stopped playing to let the crowd participate and our singing sounded so bad that Tim stoped and asked if there were a load of Maouri warriors in the hall.
5. After Its Only Natural, the crowd was on its feet clapping and cheering so loudly that when the brothers came back in for the encore the look on their faces when they saw the reception was to die for. Their faces lit up I swear.
This show was by far the best I have ever heard by Crowded House, Tim Finn or Split Enz and I have heard many of them. The musical performances were phenominal, the brothers were on top form for witt and humour and the audience were superb, knowledgable and very appreciative. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I loved it and how much it moved me in many wyas....from the brilliance of Chocolate Cake to the sheer concentrated romance of Last Day in June in which the atmosphere in that place was electric. From the point in Where is my Soul where Neil sings that beautiful melody "And I go on, with my consciense clear. Down below they're looking for me......" to the stunning harmonies in In Love With it All. The whole concert was pure genius on both brothers' parts and I really want to thank them both for a wonderful evening I will always remember. NEIL, IF YOU EVER READ THIS, THANK YOU SO MUCH. I KNOW YOU THOUGHT IT WAS AN EXTRA-ORDINARY CONCERT, SOMETHING A LITTLE SPECIAL COMPARED WITH MOST OTHER SHOWS.....WE ALL SAW THAT IN YOUR EXPRESSIONS.
Oh, and by the way, we saw Liam, Elroy and Sharon walk past us during the show plus Dave Dobbyn stood right next to me to take a photo of the brothers......does this mean a live album may be on the cards for which Dave was taking photos for the cover????? I do hope so for all our sakes. Gotta go, so thanks if you got this far and bye for now.
Kris Stevens
OK - for all of you out there who want to know what the Finn shows were like - lets' just say that they were TRANSCENDENTAL (esp. 16th Nov). The shows were in an old Methodist church in Islington ("for all of you Method actors out there", according to Tim) with a capacity of about 500 people. Had to sit in pews w/ beer in hand (sacrelige that only the Finn bros could provide).
The first show was laden w/ old record industry-types, which I think that Neil seems to hate, as Neil & Tim didn't really play with the crowd very much. After the encores, Neil looked like he wanted to dart off the stage.
The second night was light, funny and much looser, thanks to a younger, less restrained crowd. I don't think that Tim & Neil wanted to leave the stage. 2 standing "O"s for them that night.
I don't think that the shows were musically the best I ever witnessed, but the intimacy and the venue helped make the shows the most special I've ever experienced.
"Worthe"
Well, seeing as I've never posted to the list before I thought on seeing the gig on Thursday it would give me the perfect chance to do so.
I arrived at just after 6pm, met my friend from the CH Fan Club and her brother and friend, (who only got tickets after I had tipped them off on seeing the initial posts from the TIM list - I pass on their gratitude to Marck et al), and found ourselves in the queue, a mere 8 or so people from the front, obviously the prospect of a front row seat was looking good. At around 7.30 someone came out and said we should queue round the side, there then followed an almighty scramble to go to this entrance though fortunately we somehow found ourselves now just 2 people from the side door - until we were told to go up to the bar and wait there before being brought down to the *same* entrance along the *same* route. Everyone piled up to the bar and began forming a queue which soon turned into a room full of people waiting to charge back down the stairs. Already people had started queuing down the stairs while we were left stuck in the bar seeing visions of the front row rapidly dissipating.
Eventually people were called down and we ended up 4/5 'pews' from the front much to our disappointment. Did they do the same thing on the Wednesday gig? It was very unfair to people like us who had stood out in the freezing cold specifically to sit at the front and find people who had just arrived sitting in front of us.
Anyway, Dave Dobbyn came on at about 8.15 - ironically, I had bought his CD 'Twist' that afternoon while killing time in Virgin not knowing that he would be playing. He did a 50 minute set which went down very well with everyone, though I must admit the longer he went on the more I wanted him to come off so Neil and Tim could come on! Songs that stood out for me were 'Betrayal', 'Lap of the Gods' and 'PC'. Having given the CD a few good listens I can heartily recommend it. Dave came across really well, though a few comments were made about his 'leering' eyes when on a couple of occasions women walked across in front of him!
Neil and Tim came on at about 9.15 and began, as I expected, with 'Only Talking Sense'. Second song was an Enz one I think, sadly I don't know the name. From then on the playing order is a haze but they did all of FINN except 'Bullets in my Hairdo' - the version of SN was superb, they drew it out superbly, if only they'd done that on the album. 'Last day of June' was done near the end, Neil's voice soared beautifully throughout the chapel, quite superb. 'Mood Swinging Man' was one of the highlights largely due to Tim's antics, up till then he'd been pretty quiet but suddenly came out of himself and delighted everyone with his dancing and gestures!
The set included several Woodface tracks - a smashing version of 'Chocolate Cake', 'It's Only Natural', 'There Goes God', 'How Will You Go', 'Four Seasons..' and ,of course, 'WWY'. Also, they did 'Persuasion', 'In love with it all', 'History Never Repeats' and another famous Enz one whose name escapes me at the moment plus a brief rendition of "Please release me" by Neil! - Also a couple more Enz/Tim tracks I think that I didn't recognise. Other memorable moments, the nougart bar, Neil complaining about the buzzing in his ear and Neil and Tim lying on the floor towards the ends of a couple of tracks.
They ended with 'Paradise', Neil with his ukulele was quite hilarious. The atmosphere between the two encore's and at the end was quite wonderful the guys seemed to enjoy it as much as we had. In all, a great evening, which by the end almost compensated for the bad organization over queuing.
Angela Lauria
Well I just got back from Pilgrimage number 2 (yes the first was my July trip to Kare Kare). The England FINN shows were all fabulous and if I get ambitious soon I will post my full reviews, however, I feel obligated to say at least a few things now. The first is this was my first time seeing Tim live and I must say I have officially been converted. I was always much more into Neil but Tim really comes off brilliantly on stage. Much less corny and dated than in looks in videos or even sometimes sounds.. Still it is Neil's voice that completely locks me into trips across the Atlantic puddle but Tim was more than holding his own up there. If for no other reason than he can fake being happy better than Neil. The contrast between the two Union Chapel shows was pretty FULL-ON. Neil was obviously cheesed off about some haineous interview with some ignorant woman on some Good Morning Liverpool (is that an oxymoron?>) show. This was right up there with Melbourne is the City of Sails in the interview realm and getting stuck on a train from Liverpool to London was apparently another unpleasant experience. Neil hardly said more than Thank You the entire Wednesday night show. But Thursday it was Neil and Tim at their best. I am sure people have already raved about the BRILLIANT Sandy Allen rendition not to mention the awe inspiring harmonies through out the evening but perhaps most notably on In Love With it All. Tim was really on the edge and he was willing to try these crazy vocal improvisations and Neil sort of followed taking the audience to new and different places with some classic tunes.
Anyway if they do swing back around after the holidays, while I resist falling into temptation and going back over, I can attest to the rest of you American listies it's worth a trip from anywhere. Plus Liam was just the cutest T-shirt salesman around.
And oh, Dave Dobbyn has officially move into Demigod status in my book.