Last night we finally saw Crowded House. When I say finally, I mean it took 3 attempts. Last year, we bought tickets to see them in Oakland. It turned out, we already had tickets the same night for Jack Johnson at The Greek Theater in Berkeley (a gift from our kids). We sold those tickets and bought some for their show at The Paramount in Seattle. That show was cancelled due to someone in the band having a back issues.
Fast forward to this year. We saw they were coming to The Mountain Winery in Saratoga up in the Santa Cruz mountains. We once saw Chris Isaak there in 1997 when it was a much smaller space. It’s an amazing venue, but not ideal on a weeknight. It’s a complete Shitshow exiting down the winding road at 11pm.
Luckily, I was listening to Spotify and saw they were also playing in Santa Rosa at the Luther Burbank Theater. It’s a great performing arts center that seats about 1100 people. It actually looks and feels like a megachurch inside. Turns out, that’s exactly what it was originally built to be.
Santa Rosa is a much longer drive, about a 180 mile roundtrip, but it’s all freeway. Going to the show was reminiscent of college, when we’d scramble up to Chicago from Champaign-Urbana for a show at The Metro (Voice of the Beehive), The Riviera (Oingo Boingo), or The Rosemont Horizon (The Cure). Then we’d drive home the same night, stopping at a Denny’s or White Castle for some rotgut coffee, cigarettes and a snack. I was probably more worried about making it home alive last night than I was in college.
As for the show. I love Crowded House. That might surprise some people but I was turned on to them by my late brother Steve. He was a huge Split Enz fan, and was chomping at the bit when he heard Neil Finn was coming out with a new band.
Their debut, self-titled album was a real sleeper. I loved “The World Where you Live” the first single of the album. It was kind of haunting, and Neil Finn has a great voice. Over the next year or so, they released more songs off of it, and eventually “Don’t Dream it’s Over” became a huge hit.
I never got a chance to see Crowded House before last night. I did, however, see Neil Finn when he replaced Lindsey Buckingham on tour with Fleetwood Mac (Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was there as well). It really says something about Lindsey Buckingham that it takes two talented guys to replace him. I think I’ll do a post about that show too.
We were in row G, and close to the side of the stage. The band is no longer a trio. It’s a 6-piece including Neil Finn’s two sons (on guitar and drums) plus producer Mitchell Froom on keyboards. Oh, and a guy on bongos. They really looked like they were having fun. As a dad, it seems pretty cool to have your adult kids following you into the family business.
They played a great mix of new, old and even Split Enz. As a sign of getting older, we left before the encore knowing we had to get up early for work.
I almost forgot. The opening act was an Irish acoustic trio called Amble. I’m a sucker for that stuff. They had a great story. They formed two years ago in hopes of getting some pub gigs in Ireland. They recently quit their day jobs as teachers, and now they’re opening for Crowded House. How cool is that. Below is a clip of them covering John Prine.
This show capped off an interesting concert run for me. Over the last 10 days I have seen 3 shows I’ve been wanting to see for over 30 years. First it was the Jayhawks, followed by Paul Weller. I’m ready for a break. So far, the next show I have scheduled is John Hiatt at Bimbo’s in San Francisco in November.