Brian
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Post by Brian on Apr 26, 2022 23:00:21 GMT -8
Here we go! The first page of this thread centered on last June's release of the first Crowded House album since 2010, "Dreamers are Waiting." On Tuesday morning, Neil announced 21 North American concert dates, coming after a Covid-shortened Australian tour just this month and the already twice postponed U.K. and European dates now set for this June and July. This link will take you to the web version of the official e-mail, which has links to the venues for ordering tickets: mailchi.mp/neilfinn.com/north-american-tour-2022?e=b2395aed18They booked the Wiltern on September 26. Various presales start Wednesday morning, with tickets sold to the general public beginning Friday, April 29.
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Post by Brian on Sept 12, 2022 23:00:26 GMT -8
Soon after I bought tickets to the Crowded House show at the Wiltern on September 26, it became a near sellout, so a second show was added there on the 27th. I checked the seating chart in late August for that date and most of the floor seats were sold while the back rows of the upper decks were still available.
Then came the e-mail blast from Crowded House announcing that the entire North American tour was being postponed because drummer Elroy Finn, the band's youngest member and Neil's youngest son, was "suffering a painful lower back injury." It was followed hours later by the e-mail from Live Nation saying that the band had 60 days to reschedule before refunds could be issued.
Now, three weeks later, Neil sent an e-mail headed by the photo above of him apparently using the unplanned break to grow a beard. He hopes to announce the new dates in a few weeks. Elroy's back is improving. I assume that we'll find out when Crowded House will eventually play in North America before they embark on a 19-date tour of Australia in late October and November. Meanwhile, the band is also working on new songs -- here's the link to the e-mail's browser version: mailchi.mp/neilfinn.com/thoughts-from-the-piano?e=b2395aed18
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Post by Brian on Nov 30, 2022 0:00:18 GMT -8
Not long after my previous post, Live Nation announced that the Crowded House concert at the Wiltern on September 26 has been rescheduled to May 8, 2023.
Last weekend, Crowded House sent an e-mail blast with a new song written by Neil Finn -- "Oh Hi" -- to support a charity in Africa. The organization's website linked below says the song will be on a new Crowded House album to be released in 2023. Here's the e-mail in full:
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Post by Brian on May 7, 2023 23:00:22 GMT -8
The two Crowded House concerts previously scheduled at the Wiltern last September will take place this Monday and Tuesday, two years after the release of the "Dreamers Are Waiting" album and a full year after we bought our tickets. I checked Live Nation's charts for both shows last week -- almost all of the few seats remaining are resale tickets. The band played Saturday in Oakland, so Neil presumably spent Sunday at his house in the Hollywood Hills.
This will be the first concert we've attended since November 2019, because of Covid. We skipped shows by the Long Ryders, Chuck Prophet and other favorite artists because they played in packed clubs. I'm less anxious than I was before the September concert was postponed because case rates and hospitalizations are lower now and we got the second bivalent booster as soon as it became available nearly three weeks ago. The seats we chose -- front row balcony on the aisle -- offer the best ventilation. And we plan on wearing KF94 masks. In other news, Neil unveiled Fang TV on his website, www.neilfinn.com/, on May 1. "For one month, 24 hours a day," Neil wrote, "we’re featuring videos from recent and long past performances, video clips, interviews, snippets and obscurities abounding. The streaming started on Tuesday Pacific Time, right as the band took the stage in Vancouver, and will feature some pieces of the current live shows." It's wonderful programing going all the way back to Split Enz. Tip: click on the TV Guide icon in the lower right of the screen to see what's coming in the queue.
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Post by Brian on May 9, 2023 23:00:17 GMT -8
The heyday of concert videos on You Tube was a full decade ago. Young people since then post on other apps, but the median age of a Crowded House show is 60 so I was hopeful as I searched You Tube, sorting for the latest submissions first. And I've been rewarded: Finn fanatics are still uploading high quality videos from last week's concerts. Here's my initial offering from the Wiltern on May 8 of the few songs posted so far:
Don't be fooled by the audio on that clip. The sound at the Wiltern last night might have been the best at any venue I've attended in the last 50 years. Anni and I heard every word of the band's famous stage banter in the mezzanine through the excellent P.A., which might be a first.
I can't overstate how much Liam Finn brings to this latest iteration of Crowded House with his guitars, vocals, computer artistry and humor. Now a gifted and successful solo artist in his own right, we saw him open the very first U.S. concert of the previous Crowded House reunion in 2007 at age 23. The next year, he was opening shows on Eddie Vedder's tour. Liam manipulated a homemade gizmo to construct beats with gorgeous melodies while singing and sometimes playing guitar. At the Wiltern, he also performed solo with a drum kit, keyboards, guitar, a malfunctioning laptop that he recovered from adroitly and what looked like that original gizmo for one song. For the finale, he leaped off the stage and ventured into the audience. Liam said he was recording songs on the tour for a forthcoming live album. We own all of his CD's and look forward to that.
After three and a half years, Anni and I had forgotten how a great concert gives a long lasting buzz. We're so glad we went, and we're 94 percent certain that we didn't get Covid. I wrote down a setlist as I always have, then I checked my old online haunt, setlist.fm, when I got home. This fan got it right:
www.setlist.fm/setlist/crowded-house/2023/wiltern-theatre-los-angeles-ca-5bb9b3bc.html
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Post by anni on May 11, 2023 15:00:56 GMT -8
Ginny and Steve have been Finn concert companions of ours for two decades. They attended both concerts this week at the Wiltern. Apparently they had better seats the second night than they did on Monday -- she snagged Tuesday's setlist off the stage after the show. Logged in members can click on the image below to enlarge it to a full size photo:
The band stuck to the setlist. Ginny's souvenir matches the setlist.fm report for May 9, which also takes in "Iris," a Split Enz classic described as a "Neil solo snippet by request."
Brian compared Ginny's list to the set on Monday, May 8. It has 24 songs and we heard 23. "I Got You" was added to the encore Tuesday. Crowded House played five songs on Tuesday that they didn't do Monday: "Don't Stop Now," "Heroes," "Playing with Fire," "Sister Madly" and "Whatever You Want." To make room, they dropped five songs from Monday: "Sweet Dreams," "Nails in My Feet," "Goodnight Everyone," "Now We're Getting Somewhere" and "Love Isn't Hard at All." Of the two shows, I think we got the better deal. The band's performance of "Sweet Dreams" -- Brian's favorite song since 1977 -- was a bit slower, almost countrified. Can't describe it well but it wasn't the kinetic, high energy take that Neil and Liam gave the song, a la Split Enz, at Largo in 2018.
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Post by Brian on Oct 25, 2023 23:00:11 GMT -8
I just learned that a two-CD set, “Crowded House LIVE ’92–’94,” is coming out in December to benefit the Australian Road Crew Association's charity for roadies. The word came in an e-mail -- the first blast from the official Crowded House site in nearly five months -- that looks exactly like this: mailchi.mp/neilfinn.com/crowded-house-live-92-94-2-cd-set?e=b2395aed18I'm at the age when I'm constantly questioning the urge to buy any more stuff, but this generous 32-song package is irresistible. I might have one of the best CD collections on the Left Coast of Split Enz, Crowded House and Tim and Neil Finn live performances, for all I know, most of them bootlegs (including one I put into circulation worldwide, back when people burned CD's, of a Split Enz show I attended in January 1977). But I don't have any soundboard recordings like these of this band in their peak years right before they broke up. Also, I want to support physical music while I still can -- the two discs in the set were only available previously for streaming or downloads. I clicked on the preorder button and after a few clicks got the price: $25.45 before shipping.
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Post by Brian on Mar 27, 2024 0:16:27 GMT -8
I started this thread in 2021 -- a few months before Crowded House put out their first album in 11 years -- then I picked up when they appeared at the Wiltern last year. On May 31, Crowded House will release the follow up album with their revamped line up behind Neil Finn and Nick Seymour, who founded the band in the mid-80's in a rented house in Hollywood. That's the official video for "Oh Hi," the first song issued from "Gravity Stairs." It feels like an instant classic to me -- strong hooks with uplifting lyrics. To truly rank it I'll have to keep listening for months but "Oh Hi" might be Neil's catchiest song in decades. Three videos of "Oh Hi" hit You Tube last month, the second one a lyric video. What really knocked me out was the video embedded below: Neil and Nick fronting the BBC Concert Orchestra arranged by Victoria Kelly, who's worked with Neil for at least a dozen years -- she even came from New Zealand for one of Neil's last minute Largo shows. I always buy from an artist's online store when I can. Townsend Music in the U.K. is the vendor on the Crowded House website, linked below, though they ship from the U.S. I've bought from Townsend for 15 years at least and value their e-mail blasts to learn about new releases. You'll have to register to buy from Townsend, but I'm recommending them, not just because Amoeba quit stocking so many CD's I wanted. Service is seamless and shipping is fast, even from London. The CD is $14 and the LP costs $36, including sales tax. For an extra buck on shipping, you can shave a few days off your delivery. crowdedhouse.tmstor.es/?lf=a752aae818a4465f9b4c22a626f3137d
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Post by Brian on Apr 11, 2024 23:00:13 GMT -8
Crowded House unveiled their North American tour in an e-mail blast on Thursday. The band is offering an artist presale starting today, April 12, for six days before tickets go on sale to the general public. Here's the link to the webpage of that e-mail: mailchi.mp/neilfinn.com/north-american-tour-teenage-summer-single?e=b2395aed18Lots of amphitheaters in those 15 dates from August 29 in Florida to September 28 in Paso Robles. Crowded House skipped Northern California in last year's tour so apparently it's our turn down here. Unless they book the Greek Theatre -- not far from houses Neil and Liam own -- which currently has nothing scheduled between September 27 and October 9. How about the Starlight Bowl in Burbank? I saw Kris Kristofferson there before he retired and Bob Marley and the Wailers in 1978. Maybe Neil will pop up at Largo if he and Sharon stay here after the tour. Also on Thursday, the band released the video of their second single, "Teenage Summer," which is titled "Life's Imitation" on the album's preorder page and on the setlists they printed when we heard the song at the Wiltern last year. Anyway, what a beautiful song and video.
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