Live review: Crowded House at Club Nokia

Neil Finn’s current version of the band lets its jam-happy instincts get the better of it.

Close to the bottom of a list of things you want to see at a Crowded House show is a jam session. Formed in Australia in 1985, this old-model pop-rock group has always revolved around the songwriting of frontman Neil Finn, an affable New Zealand native with an uncommon flair for pairing words and melodies. 

The consistent quality of Finn’s tunecraft is the principal reason why Crowded House’s reunion in 2006 — following a 10-year break and the death of the band’s original drummer, Paul Hester — proceeded so smoothly. Here’s a guy whose work might live longer on sheet music than on CD.

Finn displayed flashes of that compositional gift Friday night at Club Nokia, where he led the current version of Crowded House through a two-hour show split about evenly between older material and more recent songs from 2007’s “Time on Earth” and this summer’s “Intriguer.” Before he sang “Message to My Girl,” by his early group Split Enz, Finn mentioned what key it was in, and a significant portion of the audience appeared to find the news interesting.

Yet the musicians also spent an awful lot of time bashing away aimlessly at their instruments, unmoored from the impressive architecture of Finn’s songs. “Distant Sun” started out strongly as a winsome jangle-pop number but ended up adrift in a sea of blandly anonymous guitar-band fuzz; something similar happened in “Hole in the River,” a thoughtful highlight from Crowded House’s self-titled debut. If this doesn’t sound as boring as it was, imagine the inverse: a Ke$ha concert full of folk ditties.

It was possible to understand Finn’s thinking here. At a moment when many acts are earning more money from touring than from selling recordings, it makes sense to offer an experience unique to the live setting. Finn’s stage banter Friday, particularly during a stretch of equipment trouble, offered a charming demonstration of that strategy (without feeling like a strategy at all). Musically, though, the band’s lengthy instrumental digressions only served to dilute the potency of what sets Crowded House apart from the zillion other bands swimming in the Beatles’ wake.

Perhaps Finn knew that too. At Club Nokia the group resisted the urge to stretch out in two of its most well-known hits, “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “Locked Out,” the latter of which sounded as vital — and as tidy — as it ever has. And when the band went off-script in “Weather With You,” from 1991’s “Woodface,” it only did it to interpolate a bit of Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime.” It was one detour that improved the overall trip.

-- Mikael Wood

Photo credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

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Comments

[Tabatha]

Speak for yourself! one of the best things about a Crowdies show is that it INCLUDES 'jams',impromtu versions of songs, cover versions,different versions of their own songs,banter with the crowd etc etc. No 2 Crowdies show is the same, in setlist of otherwise.You might also mention the technical troubles which were part of the reason for the 'instrument bashing'
As for Ke$ha and similar talentless clones,they do not deserve to be mentioned in the same article as Crowded House

[Mayzee]

I was at the Crowded House concert when they played in Ottawa and was absolutely mesmerized and pumped and the euphoria lasted for days afterwards. In contrast, I don't know how I would handle surviving through five minutes of a concert featuring that Kesha person. Who is she anyway? Oh yeah. That whining girl that somehow got a recording contract. *shudder* How did that happen? Gimme My Finn fix and leave talentless wannabes out of eat... please.

[Sandy]

Clearly you have never been to a Crowded House concert before. Their jamming is part of many of their shows and one of the things true Crowdies fans (clearly you are'nt one)love about them. you never know what to expect.
I was bored by your review personally

[Mary]

"Close to the bottom of a list of things you want to see at a Crowded House show is a jam session"
How did you arrive at this conclusion? did you ask the fans? because there is a couple of hundred posts on the Crowded House facebook pages and the fan forums and not one mentioned they were bored with the jamming or anything else

[Lucy]

I didn't notice them veering into Phish territory at all. And you really have to hand it to Neil Finn when he can do an extemporaneous song about the roadie fixing his guitar and actually have it be good.

[aldo riba]

Maybe you should have been at the ke$ha show instead. There wasn't anyone at the show besides you who had any problem with the band going off record on any song.

I can put in my earbuds anytime to hear the recorded versions of their songs. They played killer songs from each of their albums.

I've seen every CH tour in LA since '88. The Club Nokia show ranked up there with the best.

[David Linck]

Mr. Wood's review of the Crowded House show at Club Nokia (which I also attended) is one of those head scratchers that has me thinking 'were we at the same show"? Perhaps he is not as brushed up on the band as I, a long time fan. Nonetheless, what was notable about the concert was Neil Finn's reflection of today's somber, ailing world situation which he took pains to reflect in choosing a pastiche of gray songs from his bumper crop of bright feel-good ditties, lending the show a sober and reflective tone. To center the review on the fact the band 'jammed' is certainly curious, as the band had only a handful of numbers augmented by any sort of off-script interplay. Any House fan will tell you this is part and parcel of what makes any Finn date fresh and evocative, with familiar tunes being stretched and molded anew by a band certainly up to the task. To call Finn on the carpet for adding a bit to a few tunes is totally missing the point of a show created to connect with the inner depths of its audience awash in today's uncertain and dour economic/ social times. Did Mr. Wood have a bus to catch? Seems anything running past its three minute album time put him in a misplaced snit. How jangly is that?

[Corky Ray]

Mr Wood,

Get a clue before you write another review like the one you have here. You have embarrassed yourself.

"Musically, though, the band’s lengthy instrumental digressions only served to dilute the potency of what sets Crowded House apart from the zillion other bands swimming in the Beatles’ wake." What nonsense.

It seems that the fans that have written before me all agree. You are the boring one sir!!

Long live Neil Finn & Crowded House!!!

[Chris]

I've never been one to comment on concert reviewsm as everyone has their own experience, but really? Sad to say, I've been a CH fan since I saw their debut album on the wall at Moby Disc on Ventura Blvd., but never saw them until Friday night. Having bought Intriguer, my wife and I thought it would be a pretty sedate show. We couldn't have been more wrong. The impromptu songs, the sing a longs, the muscial jams, who knew CH could rock so hard? It was a fantasstic show, and I'd see them again in a second. There were a number of technical problems, but they're professionals and they played right through them. That's thenature of rock and roll. Sorry it didn't sound exactly like the album (and the rendition of Message to My Girl was fantastic)

[Monty Burns]

Wow...were we even at the same show? The crowd was mesmerized throughout and I've never heard such harmonizing between a band and it's fans before. The show was excellent and to say it veered this far into jamband territory was absurd. There was a little of that but you describe it as if it was a Phish concert.

Weak review. The fans at the show loved it. I'm not a core fan but I was there and I thought they were fantastic.

[Ronsky]

Crowded House is known for performing their songs differently between tours and from concert-to-concert. The 'jam sessions' (which were not long by any stretch of the imagination) have always been part of the Crowded House experience as well as the extended audience participation moments. The banter between band members has always been there too. Haven't seen them before have you? If you want to listen to the original arrangements, stay home with a glass of wine and listen to the CD.

[Amy]

I would have to add my "jam" to the people that disagree with Mr.Woods review...I was there that night and it re-lit the fire within my tired soul to hear them play almost three striaght hours! I was dancing, singing along, reflecting on what it felt like to loose yourself in the music! I wasn't the only one either, the two friends I brought seem to be more plugged into life since then. I loved all of it! Thank you Crowded House for pulling this off!

[noname72pro]

Mr. Wo0d,
Those 'boring' jams by CH, along with their spontaneity, genuine love for performing live, and sincere connection to the audience is what keeps me coming back to see them since 1991. As always, they were in fine form this time around. I can't give even one of the compliments above to many of the other bands I've seen, which makes CH so special. If you can't see that, well, many others can.

[Jagexxx]

Ke$ha, now that would be boring.

[MusicHy.pe]

For all you fans out there who disagree with Mr Wood visit the MusicHy.pe shop to purchase your USB stick of the recent Crowded House concert at Club Nokia and relive the evening! The entire Intriguer album is also included on the USB. How cool is that?!