Crowded House is the kind of band that can hit you with a deep, brooding song about the nature of life and mortality. Then they’ll crack a few jokes.
The band’s always had a split personality - they’re jovial pop guys with a wide depressive streak, and it’s only widened since they reunited last year.
Life has given frontman Neil Finn some heavy things to write about - last year’s reunion album, “Time
Earth,” seemed informed by the death of original drummer Paul Hesterbut - but Finn’s songs were getting deeper and subtler long before that happened. Last night they introduced a handful of new songs that continued the ambitious trend.
While Finn’s songs don’t necessarily sound like hit singles nowadays, they do sound like gorgeous, dark-shaded pop - and at least one of the new tunes (which uncharacteristically featured double keyboards and no guitars) was up with their best. To their credit, Crowded House never pushed the somber mood too far: They had rockers (“Locked Out”) to pull from the catalogue; and well-remembered hits (“Don’t Dream It’s Over”) to balance the unfamiliar songs.
While the band has a more relaxed sound than before, you get the impression that they reunited to explore new ideas, not to trade on nostalgia. The onstage camaraderie seems natural as always. At one point last night, Finn gave bassist Nick Seymour a piggyback ride around the stage.
The small-theater setting proved a payoff for fans, who got a looser and longer show than Crowded House played at the Pavilion last summer. During a 45-minute encore, Finn accepted a dare from someone up front to try playing every song he’d written with someone’s name in the title. This led to almost-never-played songs “Iris” and “Hello Sandy Allen” (both from his former band, Split Enz), with Finn cueing his bandmates on the chord changes.
After a few more deep tracks, he jumped into the front row to lead a singalong on one of his best ballads, “Better Be Home Soon.” That’s the way to return a cult audiences affections.
