Crowded House in Kansas City, MO
Crowded House play Kansas City, Missouri on Monday, August 20, 2007 at the Uptown Theatre.
Irish? Well, no, but let’s make some connections.
Australia and New Zealand fight over which country they’re from, but they sprang out of the Melbourne scene in Australia, and New Zealander Neil Finn has always regarded them as a Melbourne band.
Nick Seymour is the bass player. He’s from Australia, but he’s also known as the producer of Neither Am I, the debut album by one of Ireland’s most highly regarded groups, Bell X1.
And for good measure you will find Nick playing with The Cake Sale, the mostly Irish collaborative project for Oxfam Ireland late last year.
The Cake Sale? Yes, along with Nick Seymour were Paul Noonan (Bell X1), Gary Lightbody (Snow Patrol), Glen Hansard (The Frames), Neil Hannon (Divine Comedy), Conor Deasy (The Thrills), Nina Persson (The Cardigans), Olli Cole (Turn), Lisa Hannigan (who you may just remember from Damien Rice’s band), David Geraghty (Bell X1), Gemma Hayes, Damien Rice himself, and somebody called Josh Ritter. Actually to be honest there’s even more, but you get the idea don’t ya?
Have a listen to The Cake Sale on MySpace or just watch this gem sung by Lisa Hannigan and Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody, called Some Surprise.
Don’t Dream It’s Over was Crowded House’s biggest hit in the US, reaching number 2 in the charts back when we thought it would soon be over. Well, Don’t Dream It’s Over also reached number 2 in the Irish charts - for manufactured Irish pop band Dove, a play on words as “dove” is how you pronounce the Irish word for black, “dubh” and the band was a non-white band. And pretty soon for them it was over. And it wasn’t a dream.
Front man Neil Finn is also of course brother to the older Tim Finn. Tim has been briefly a member of Crowded House as well as main man for the earlier, legendary and undeniably New Zealand band Split Enz.
You may remember Tim was also the T in the super band ALT. We’ve talked about ALT before. The L was Liam O Maonlai, and the A was Andy White, making it technically a two-thirds Irish band vesus one-third NZ, but again I think Australia should get the credit for that one.
In November 1996, Crowded House played its last show ever. It was on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in front of hundreds of thousands of fans. And then in 2007 they reformed because that’s what bands do, and 10 years is forever in pop music.
Tonight, June 22, 2007 they are playing in Dublin, Ireland. It’s an outdoor bash with Peter Gabriel in Marley Park. Having just watched the news in Ireland Rathfarnham - which is right by the venue - has major floods and more rain forecast so RTE advised concertgoers to bring their wellies.
Crowded House have always been very popular in Ireland, I don’t know, probably because their brand of melodic poppy rock edges to the folk side - which is another way of saying they play conservative guitar based music and that’s always popular in a land with a strong traditional music history.
And that concludes the tenuous Irish links to Crowded House.
Tickets and Location
In Kansas City’s Uptown Theater at 3700 Broadway the gig starts at 7:30pm with support from 16 Frames. I think 16 Frames are out of California, but all you need to know is that if you like Crowded House you’re bound to like 16 Frames - they have that same lightness of touch with little hints of grandeur in a folk pop way. Honestly. Oh, just go to their MySpace
Tickets are available from Ticketmaster for the surrendering of three of your fingers.
Here’s a video from that Farewell to the World gig at the Sydney Opera House. Tim Finn joins the boys (crowds the house?) for a little ditty you may know, called Weather With You:
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
