All About the Music

Yesterday was probably the best experience of live music I’ve had, one of those everything-comes-together situations that just makes me feel incredibly lucky to be living the life I’m living. I’m gonna try and get some of those moments onto the record and point you to some spots on the Internet where you can catch a glimpse of them.

I went downtown to World Café Live to see a Free at Noon concert with Crowded House and Joan as Police Woman, a concert you can hear online at NPR. I’d never been to the venue, but it’s a very nice little theater and the sound was pretty good. Joan was pretty good, doing three songs on the keyboard with a bassist and drummer before switching over to electric guitar for her finale. The radio host misread her notes at one point during the interview, which made me feel bad – I beat myself up when I mis-speak in front of 30 students, which is merely one reason that a career in radio is probably not for me. But this is an important point in today’s story – we’ll come back to it in a moment.

After Joan’s set Crowded House walked onto the stage, looking very much like they wanted to know whose bright idea it was to get them up to perform this early in the day. Most of the band members were wearing T-shirts, and I’m not sure Neil Finn had gone near a comb that morning. They were in good spirits, though. When someone from the audience yelled “You forgot Tim!� (Neil’s brother and frequent collaborator), Neil feigned surprise – “I knew I left something behind!� – before nodding toward his son Liam and saying “I brought his nephew.� At this point the radio host started introducing the band and referred to their most recent album as Together Alone, at which point the audience started murmuring in a way that I interpreted as “Umm . . . should we interrupt her?� before Neil said, “That wasn’t very recent . . .� Turns out the host had written a note to say that the band had just put out their first album since Together Alone. The philosopher in me thought that was an interesting case of how our brain can just grab a piece of information and run with it based on prior patterns and expectations, but I put that out of mind. There was music to hear, now with the added benefit of a running joke.

Neil and Liam were on acoustic guitars with Mark Hart on the keyboard, and they led off with “Heaven That I’m Makingâ€? from the new album. I think it’s a decent song on the album, but live with the two guitars it sounded great. I think that the backing vocals from everyone in the band give more intensity to the song, which would become a running theme in my thinking about the live performances. They then performed “World Where You Live” and “Fall at Your Feet,” but for me the highlight was the banter back and forth between Neil and bassist Nick Seymour; they looked for all the world like they were cracking each other up on stage, and I got a hint of the spontaneity that has helped form Crowded House’s live reputation. Neil then begged off from performing the single from the new album, claiming to have a frog in his throat. Now, I couldn’t detect anything wrong with his voice, although I’ve noted that other people were able to hear it. (You definitely hear it on the radio broadcast, probably because Neil’s vocals are more prominent in the mix than they were in the theater.) The moment did provide an opportunity for Nick to go astray in a valiant effort to use the word “masticate,â€? and ultimately they closed out with “Four Seasons in One Day.” At that point I was really, really looking forward to the band’s concert at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts later that night.

Now, I hadn’t been to the Mann since I was in high school and the place was still called the Mann Music Center. And whenever I had bought seats there, they were toward the back of the sheltered area of the outdoor ampitheater. Not bad seats, no, but not spectacular either. This time around, thanks to Internet presales, Pattie and I were in the fifth row of the first section behind the orchestra pit. So we were already off to a good start. Liam came out about 15 minutes before the showtime listed on the tickets and did a short solo set. Now, I’ve seen solo artists use delay pedals to be able to loop sounds and build up the song a little bit, and Liam did a good job with that. (He also has the family pipes. I sure hope there’s no black sheep in the Finn family who can’t sing – that would be horribly depressing.) What I had never seen before this show was someone use the delay pedals while playing electric guitar for 2/3 of the song, put the guitar down, and run over to a small drum set to close out the song. It was a good show, and I bought the CD Liam was selling at the merchandise stand. (I somewhat regret not buying the Liam Finn T-shirt with Neil in a Darth Vader outfit saying “I am your father,� but damn, concert T shirts are expensive.)

After a few minutes Pete Yorn came out with five backing musicians. Now, I have had the ridiculous luck of seeing Yorn – my favorite new act of this decade – open for both R.E.M. and Crowded House, so one of these days I actually have to go see him headline. For tonight, though, we got a solid nine or ten song set that included some covers and some songs I had never heard before, which could be either covers or new material. I’ll have to look that up. Having four guitarists going at one time made it possible for the live performance to match up with the dense production on a lot of Yorn’s album tracks, so songs like “Life on a Chain� really rocked. I was a little disappointed that some of my favorite songs from his last two albums didn’t make the setlist, but you know, that’s the tradeoff for getting to see him for “free� as the opening act.

It was a few minutes past 9:30 when Crowded House came on stage. Unlike the Free at Noon show, they were wearing suits as they’ve done for their videos and performances to date. I think it’s a pretty sharp look, and I think it’s a nice way of turning the whole idea of being a nostalgia band or what have you on its ear. It kind of presents an image of, Yeah, we’re a little older, but that just means we know what we’re doing – we’re still cool in our way. Anyway, the band jumped right into “Locked Out,� the song that made me a Crowded House fan in 1993. (And since Neil had demurred on singing that one at the noon show, it made me fee more confident about his voice.) Sometimes when I hear a song I really love live, I don’t dig the live version so much because I notice where it’s different from the recorded track. But there were no such issues here – the band seemed to have so much fun ripping through the song, and I think Neil almost tripped over a piano stool at one point as he moved around on stage.

Mark and Neil were on guitars for this song, but both of them would also move to keyboards or electric piano at various points through the night. Mark would also break out a steel guitar and something that looked like a recorder/clarinet with a keyboard at various points. Adding his versatility as a performer to Neil’s songs is a really, really powerful combination, and it’s something that had me very excited about Crowded House’s reformation. When the band played songs like “Silent House� or “Pour le monde,� which had been recorded by Nick and Neil when Neil thought he was working on a solo album, there seemed to be more life and energy to the songs. I think that’s because of the blending of the instruments with the backing vocals from everyone, including Liam. (And you know what, let me editorialize here for a second: I think you have to have a hell of a good relationship with your father to want to go out on the road with him and play in his band. I love Neil Finn’s songs, but even beyond that I admire him a great deal as a person for being able to build that kind of relationship.)

The band shifted back and forth between up-tempo tracks like old favorite “Something so Strong� and newcomer “She Called Up� and quieter ballads like You Are the One to Make Me Cry, which meant that the energy level of the crowd tended to ebb and flow. (Plus, truth be told, much of the audience was older, and I do wonder how many of them were even familiar with the new material.) But when Neil would encourage audience participation, singling the chorus to “Don’t Dream It’s Over� or adding hand claps to “Pineapple Head,� they obliged. I may be overly optimistic, but it seemed to be like the band was happy with the response it was getting, and happy to be playing together – even if Neil did continue to tease Nick throughout the night. During “Don’t Dream It’s Over,� Neil walked out to a microphone set up on a catwalk between the orchestra pit and my tier of seats, and enjoyed it enough to encourage the rest of the band to give it a try. This led to each player running out to give high-fives to the crowd and then trying to get back to the stage before the next verse of whatever song was playing got started. When drummer Matt Sherrod decided to hang out with the crowd and sing along to the final number, “Better Be Home Soon,� Liam snuck onto the drum kit and started playing – which seemed to surprise Neil. I’ve never really been someone who wanted to follow a band on a tour – one show is usually enough to satisfy me until the next batch of new songs comes along. But I can get why someone would want to catch a bunch of Crowded House shows, just to watch where they decided to take things that night.

For me, though, I’m just gonna buy the official download of this show once it goes on sale, and start counting the months ’til the next album and the next tour. It better be . . . well, you get the idea.

About Dave Thomer

Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.

August 11, 2007 @ 2:22 pm

Culture and Media