An Evening With Neil Finn, Komedia, Brighton, April 19 (From The Argus)

An Evening With Neil Finn, Komedia, Brighton, April 19

9:27am Thursday 21st April 2011 in Music Reviews By Duncan Hall

Watching Crowded House frontman Neil Finn work the crowd on Tuesday evening was an object lesson to any performer on how to treat a devoted fanbase.

His 30-year back catalogue, with the aforementioned band, Split Enz, solo and with his brother Tim Finn, has seen him build that legion of adoring fans.

But it is undoubtedly the easy manner he adopts onstage and the way he interacts with the crowd – a constant throughout his years of performing – which ensured his Komedia date sold out in days.

His songs are frequently downbeat, heart-searching dissections of relationships and modern life, but his banter was much more light-hearted, with tales of a messy encounter with a seagull on Brighton beach, considering his first onstage haircut and encouraging the audience to fill in vocal parts and forgotten lyrics.

Accompanying himself with an electric guitar and piano, Finn dipped deep into his past, playing popular favourites such as History Never Repeats and Message To My Girl from his Split Enz days and taking Crowded House requests as well as some unreleased obscurities.

The uninterrupted two-hour set also previewed his latest songwriting project with wife Sharon, set to tour later this year, before closing with a cover of Talking Heads’s classic singalong Road To Nowhere.