Crowded House @ The HordernPavilion, Sydney (5/11/2010)

Mon 8th Nov, 2010 in Gig Reviews

As the sun set across Sydney, young and old alike joined the queue around the Hordern that backed up to the SCG in order to catch one of the greatest enduring Australian bands of all time, which, considering what was to come, was far from surprising.

Openers Oh Mercy got things going with an impressive performance comprised of melodious indie pop with interludes featuring banter between the band’s members, whose dry humour greatly amused the audience. Vocalist Alexander Gow easily shone as the band’s star, with an outstanding voice reminiscent of Angus Stone and Bob Evans guiding the band. Despite the fact that the band was relatively unknown to punters, it was evident from the great cheer at the end of the set, that Oh Mercy had gained a few thousand fans in forty five minutes.

As Oh Mercy made a triumphant exit, which consisted of them packing up most of their own gear, the giant black curtain covering up the rear of the stage was removed to reveal an impressive artistic backdrop of Crowded House’s name, as seen on the Intriguer album cover with illuminated dolls of various animals across the stage.

After a quick setup on the part of the roadies, Crowded House took to the stage to rapturous applause from the audience, at which time, long time bassist Nick Seymour and relatively new drummer Matt Sherrod established the eerie intro groove into the band’s latest single – Saturday Sun, before Neil Finn demonstrated, via vocoder, that despite looking a little aged, he can still sing damn well.

As the band wrapped up the opening track for the night, Neil Finn briefly introduced the band, before moving into a rendition of When You Come, beginning with Neil Finn strumming away on his acoustic guitar, before slowly evolving into an all out chorus to finish out the song with an incredibly dynamic ending that gave the impression that the latest re-incarnation of Crowded House was incredibly tight.

This became a recurring theme throughout the night, with not a single flaw in sight in the band’s performance, which is an incredible achievement considering the multi instrumental performance of Matt Sherod and in particular the always humble Mark Hart on keyboard, lapsteel, electric guitar and vocals greatly contributing to the extremely polished sound of the band.

Fall at Your Feet became the band’s third song for the night and was the first to be performed from their third critically acclaimed album Woodface, with Neil Finn working the crowd into chanting and singing along like a seasoned pro, before moving into a rendition of Don’t Stop Now.

The title track of the band’s latest release, Intriguer, was then introduced by Finn as having been conceived as part of a competition, in which the band had posted the backing track on their website, asking for a vocalist to write and record vocals for the track. This led to Neil bringing the winner, Sarah, on stage to lead the band in an impressive display of humility from Finn, which is nothing new from the modest front man.

As the night wore on, Crowded House continued to deliver a setlist heavily focused on the latest two Crowded House records released this year – Intriguer and The Very Very Best Of, which basically led to a set list comprised of the bands greatest hits including Don’t Dream it’s Over, World Where You Live and Mean To Me (in which Finn unusually abandoned his frequented Les Paul for a keyboard laden intro), with a few more contemporary alt-pop tracks thrown in including Either Side of the World, Amsterdam and Archer’s Arrow.

After a lengthy performance of nearly fifteen tracks, that included an attempt at shoe gazeish improvisation from Neil Finn and Mark Hart and two appearances from Finn’s wife Sharon Finn on vocals, the band rounded out their main set with It’s Only Natural, before humbly walking off stage to screaming, applauding and cheering audience.

Naturally, after a few minutes of clapping and chanting Crowded House, the audience was rewarded with a reappearance of the band, for what would become the most memorable section of the night.

Neil Finn began the bands encore, by briefly launching into the intro of Locked Out, before teasing the audience by stopping to emit some bizarre sounds from his micro-korg. Before long, Nick Seymour walked over and continued to join in, before the now grinning members of the band finally launched into the track, which was followed by a somewhat unusual rendition of The Weather With You, during which, the bridge section was altered with Finn on his Micro Korg by incorporating fragments of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax and Talking Head’s Once In a Lifetime, much to the amusement of the audience.

Finn then took an opportunity to talk to the crowd, telling them about how at their Melbourne performance, his good friend had told him he was singing this next song wrong and asked the audience to tell him if he was singing it right, before strumming the intro to Something So Strong, at the end of which, Finn broadly proclaimed “Well Evan from Melbourne, you’re full of Shit;” before improvising a song in which he began to sing “Evan thinks with his head, not with his heart, Evan makes love to his bed”, which led into yet another one of Crowded House’s greatest hits – Fingers of Love.

What followed, was perhaps one of the most impressive displays of musicianship on the night, in which a fan in the audience yelled out “Play _Recurring Dream_” and Finn said “alright, I know a bit of that”, before soloing his way through the first verse with the band coming in one by one as they came up with improvised parts to layer over the top.

Finally, after nearly two and a half hours, the night came to a close with Finn once again beginning a lengthy singalong to fan favourite Better Be Home Soon, which as Finn stated, would be bought to and would end on a “Glorious Climax”. This was then followed by the band laying down their instruments, and bowing to screaming fans for a full two minutes.

After this 150 minute performance from one of Australia’s Greatest Bands, it’s clear that to describe Crowded House’s performance as anything less than spectacularly mesmerising would be a travesty to the band’s name, and from observing each fan leaving the Hordern grinning and cheering like five year olds, it was clear that Crowded House had once again proved why they’re regarded as one of the greatest Australian bands of all time.

Check out the photos from the gig