NEIL FINN LOOKS BACK 10 YEARS
Interview: November 2006

It’s hard to believe it was 10 years ago on Sunday, November 24, 1996, that we – all 150,000 of us – stood swaying, some openly crying, others burning one last lighter in farewell, many straining to get a final glimpse of a band that had become a soundtrack for several generations of lives immersed in the daily struggle for love and survival. As Don’t Dream It’s Over fled past the Sydney Opera House sails, across the harbour and down wind to become a distant murmur on the quiet shores of Manly, the blaze of lights a better guide that something was about to be extinguished, it was a moment never to be forgotten. It was over for Crowded House. To the surprise of his bandmates, Neil Finn had decided that it was time and now he, Nick Seymour and Paul Hester, the men that built the House would say their final farewell with other housemates of years gone by – brother Tim Finn, multi-instrumentalist Mark Hart and drummer Peter Jones.

It had been an extraordinary event. Breathing space was at a minimum, passion ran much higher. Hessie, aaah Paul – we miss you, mate, cracked as many one-liners as he could, even announcing that Bob Carr was shouting everybody a drink at the Opera House bar, but at the very end, this moment when the dream really was over, his face was a study in misery; the smiles gone, his sadness a totem he would carry away.

All of this and more can now be seen on the brilliant two-disc DVD of the event, Farewell To The World, while the concert can be heard on the similarly titled double CD set.
Neil Finn, for once, isn’t at home in New Zealand; he’s at home in Somerset, England, a few miles down the road from the ancient town of Bath.
Confused? So was I. “My youngest son, Elroy, has been accepted into Atlantic College, an international boarding school in Wales,” he says. “It’s emphasises global consciousness and community services and offers an exciting approach to the last two years of a student’s high school education. It’s one of a series of United World Colleges. It looks like Hogwarts from the Harry Potter movies. And Liam is based in London now with his band Betchadupa, so Sharon [his wife of 24 years] and I thought we’d move over here for a while to be near them.”
He isn’t kidding about Hogwarts. Atlantic College is based in the stunning 12th Century St Donat’s Castle in the Vale of Glamorgan. In the meantime mum and dad are hanging out in a nice little country house where horses trot past the front door and Neil can work easily on songs for anew solo album that will see the light of day next year. Playing on that album and bunking down for a few days at a time is his “good friend”, Nick Seymour.

The bassist lives in Ireland these days, spending as much time as he can surfing its west coast. Ten years after the dream ended another has been given the grace of day.

Finn’s initial reaction to the fact that it has been a decade since the House closed its doors for the final time is a hearty, “Crikey, it’s incredible … it just shows how life goes on.
“I hadn’t actually seen the film of the concert for a very long time and I have to say I’m genuinely really happy with it because we really put the songs across. We looked like a real band and looked like and sounded like we were playing really well. It’s really quite a straight show though, we didn’t mess around much.”

On the surface it seems a strange statement – ‘we looked and sounded like a real band’; perhaps, it has something to with the gentle pop of Crowded House never threatening to overwhelm in a musical sense or perhaps it has little to do with the larger than life spectacle that is the mighty Split Enz on stage. Remember Neil came from the Enz to the House. Yet again, it maybe a memory of the failing health of the band over its last year. He should not worry. Crowded House always came across as a real band. I remember a show at the beautiful, lamp-lit, Belvoir Ampitheatre on the outskirts of Perth in its Swan valley wine region. Watching from side stage, the House were the dream that hadn’t ended; the moths and other night visitors skipped through the lights as they breathed a gentle spell on a captivated thousand souls. It was unearthly and mesmerising. Extraordinary, just like the Opera House farewell. Extraordinary is his word for November 24, 1996.
“That concert is something I will never forget but there has come a sadness to it with the passing of time. What happened last year …” He pauses. To talk of Paul’s suicide is still a little hard. “It resonated with both Nick and I while were watching and working on the DVD. Hessie had some good lines that night. I particularly remember him looking at the audience and saying “God, I’ve deposited a lot of sperm in this town’. But he really wasn’t in top from for most of the last tour. He was quite morose a lot of the time and just started to lose the vibe for it.”

So no reservations on pulling pin? “Oh no, none at all. The last 10 years have been an amazing time. I had a slight yearning that comes from the knowledge that we can’t play with Paul again – going out with Enz brought that up again. But really it has been wonderful. I love the ease of familiarity and enjoy playing with all these people I’ve known a long time. And I’m really enjoying playing with Nick again.”
So next year it’s a solo album, a DVD release of this year’s superb Split Enz reunion tour and a certain reinvention of Mr Neil Finn.
”Now the kids have left, Sharon and I have no obligations on the home front. It’s back to being teenagers, staying up late, enjoying the freedom. It’s a whole different place in your life and we’re lucky to be young enough to enjoy it.”
In a way the dream has never really ended. Let’s hope it doesn’t.