"The House That Neil Built" , puiblished in Rolling Stone Australia (Sydney), issue 534, in April 1997.
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SYDNEY, 23 NOVEMBER 1996 � An unscheduled soundcheck. Crowded House, Last Show, Opera House Steps. Across Sydney, that's the reminder scrawled in hundreds of thousands of diaries under today's date. And so it comes to pass � the official last day of Crowded House. It's a little after 7 PM and down at the venue, the stage is set for the band's final performance ever. And it looks perfect. The setting sun is shining over the Harbour, the city's skyline is glistening like platinum. During all the months of planning for this farewell gig, many prayers had begged for this particular Saturday to turn out just like today. Obviously God is a Crowdie fan too. Standing centre stage looking out, right on the spot from which Neil Finn will wave goodbye, the murky eye of the Opera House stares straight back at you. On your left, to a backdrop of dark swirling clouds scampering off into the distance, the Harbour Bridge looks mammoth, over-bearing, a gothic gateway to this private universe. MTV is here to document this historical event. Everything looks so perfect. But, of course, it's not. Regardless, Neil Finn casually leads his band � drummer Paul Hester, bassist Nick Seymour and multi-instrumentalist Mark Hart � on to this unique stage they've created. The enthusiastic crowd that sparsely covers the area in front of the Opera House gives them a rapturous welcome. Some fans have flown from as far as Europe and America to be here tonight. "Weather sucks in Sydney," the ever-ironic Paul Hester growls at the audience as his bass drum bangs out the exclamation marks. While Neil and Mark fiddle with their instruments, Nick chats with a few kids in the front row. "Do you like it up here," Nick asks Neil a few minutes later. Neil Finn � the ever-boyish 38-year-old artist, the perpetual professional, the world-renowned composer � pokes his head up out of his guitar and spares himself a moment to take in the scenic surrounds. "Pretty good view," he says with a broad smile. "It's like a Brett Whiteley sort of thing," suggests Nick. "More like a Ken Done sort of thing," retorts Neil. Even for a band with a ten-year-old tradition in delivering bizarre rock shows edged with sharp-witted banter, this is particularly peculiar. It takes several more minutes for everyone to get themselves together. Then, in what seems like an instant, that old Crowded House hands out an hour's worth of magical mementos � "Mean To Me", "World Where You Live", "When You Come", "Four Seasons In One Day", "Fall At Your Feet", "Better Be Home Soon". There's even a live national television hook-up for the band to dedicate "Private Universe" to all those friends across Australia who couldn't be here. Indeed, everything about tonight befits the final show from this universally beloved outfit. Forget that the sound system does some weird things and Neil's voice is pretty croaky thanks to a couple of rowdy warm-up shows earlier in the week in Melbourne; the 2000 fans here all feel they've witnessed something very special. The perfect last dance. Thank you Crowded House. Bye bye. That's why it's such a pity that in the bigger picture, everything's gone horribly wrong tonight. For one thing, there should have been at least another 98,000 people here right now. Problem is that only 24 hours ago, Sydney was awash in its worst storm in ages. The council stepped in and closed down the water-logged concert site, deeming it too dangerous for the show to go on. So you'd think it'd be absolute chaos here right now. Crowded House's Farewell To The World concert a wash-out. But organisers are unnervingly cool about everything. They just have to wait another night. Certainly, Neil and the rest of the band don't seem too fussed. "This is the best soundcheck we've ever had," says Neil, flashing another of his trademark smirks. MELBOURNE, EARLIER IN THE WEEK � Crowded House regroup Neil Finn is back in Melbourne. It's been three years since he left this city to resettle his family in Auckland and five months from when he announced to the world that Crowded House was finished. Neil, Paul, Nick and Mark have gathered together again to go into rehearsal for their much-hyped final show on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. The grandiose concept for the concert had been aired by Crowded House's manager, Grant Thomas, long before Neil decided to pull the pin. According to Nick Seymour, it was initially laughed off by the band as absurd. Grant Thomas' original idea was simply for Crowded House to give a free concert somewhere and raise money for a charity, the Sydney Children's Hospital. Thomas had seen the disaster which was INXS' Concert For Life a few years earlier � Crowded House was the support � and thought his band could have a much better go of it. Since Neil was adamant that he didn't want to get involved in a farewell tour and his break-up announcement from the other side of the world (London) had come so abruptly, the idea of the Opera House gig was revived and sold on the grounds of giving Crowded House's loyal Australasian fans a chance to say goodbye. But with the show now less than a week away, Neil continues to feel conflicting emotions about the whole thing. "It's a ritual of some sort, saying goodbye to it," he muses while waiting for room-service to bring up his family's dinner after the first night of rehearsals. "I mean, it seems so final and everything. I'm trying to undercut the drama of it all the time and, of course, what do we do? Go and play a big concert on the steps of the Opera House. "We're counting on 50,000-odd and everyone keeps mentioning figures of 100,000. The only danger with having something that's potentially so big is that if it's anyway less than that, we'll all be disappointed. But anything's fine. "There's bound to be some regrets, some nostalgia, some misty-eyedness about it. In a way, it proves that we've done it at the right time, that we still have affection and a lot of feeling for it. "But look, it's a weird, complicated, mixed up thing. I made a decision and I'm sticking to it. But at the same time, it's a great band. I'll miss it. And I'll miss the guys. But it's just time for me to move on." Over the next couple of days, Crowded House give two exclusive performances at the small Corner Hotel in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. One show is for fanclub members only, the other for anyone who gets to hear about it. It turns out to be the worst kept secret in town and, on both nights, the faithful overflow out of the tiny club and on to the street's outside. Inside, Crowded House deliver inspired, three-hour sets. Everyone with in earshot on either of these nights walks away thinking the same thing: "What the hell would possess this incredible ensemble to stop making music together." Not even Neil really knows the answer to that. "The only thing I can be sure of is that everybody in the band has a different spin on the whole thing," he explains. "Paul is really happy about these last shows because he thought he wasn't going to get to say so long to it properly. Nick's probably the least happy about it because he's really disappointed that the band's not continuing. "It doesn't not feel emotional to me now," Neil ponders further. "I don't know. I'll tell you after the weekend how it feels. I think it will be quite emotional." LONDON, TUESDAY, 4 JUNE 1996 � The break up of Crowded House Neil Finn had planned to make his announcement last night on stage at London's Hanover Grand Club. Everyone involved with the band already knew Neil had decided this would be Crowded House's final gig. But at the last moment, Neil chickened out. "I couldn't be that dramatic," he'd later confess. So the official end comes today in the form of a fax. "The band is indeed over and so is the name," Neil tells the world media. "We have had many moments of great intensity between the band and audience and I will always value that but there have been creative frustrations lately � I think we were beginning to repeat ourselves. I crave a new context to draw something fresh out of me as a songwriter." Neil's moment of clarity had come only two weeks earlier as he sat alone in the basement-cum-studio of his Auckland home, playing back a tape with some rough recordings of new songs. "I started listening to it, started really enjoying it and, I don't know why particularly, but I just thought, 'Ah, I don't want to be in band any more.' "Then I got a big grin on my face and I felt this burden lifted off me. I was aware I'd been thinking about it for quite a long time and it had been causing me a lot of stress and I acted straight away." Indeed, for years Neil had lived with the grating sensation that his band could collapse at any minute. Tension had always been an ingredient of the Crowded House magic. And throughout the band's ten-year history, there were endless instances where it all came with in a final chord of implosion. There was the time Neil sacked Nick after a heated argument backstage at a show in Darwin during the tour in support of 1988's Temple Of Low Men. Then there was the fiasco with brother Tim joining the band, recording 1991's Woodface, only to jump ship a couple of weeks into a crucial European tour. Somehow, Crowded House always survived. Even more recently, that night in 1994 when co-founder Paul Hester just upped and left the band after a gig in � of all places � Georgia, Crowded House got through the drama. It simply flew in a replacement drummer, Peter Jones, and the jet-setting show went on. But of course, it wasn't as simple as all that. Each of these blows had left Neil temporarily punch-drunk. And, indeed, Paul's leaving turned out to be a fatal blow. It just wasn't right without Hester the Jester there. Despite its weird timing, Paul's departure had come as no surprise, the drummer had been muttering about cutting out for ages and the imminent birth of his first child was enough reason to see it through. Slowly, over the course of those performances without Paul that followed, Neil convinced himself that Crowded House had lost its soul, its purpose. In reality, the House had already started crumbling even before that. In 1993, Neil had moved back in his native New Zealand, 3000 kilometres from his nearest band mate. He'd committed himself to a major change in lifestyle. He was over touring, had long outgrown the whole rock & roll scene, not that he was ever that much into it. After 20 years on the road, his priority now was to be with his family, to spend extended quality time with his wife Sharon and boys Liam and Elroy rather than dashing off to the airport every couple of weeks. Neil was happy in his new old home. There, his first and oldest love, music, was behaving more seductively than ever. Any time Neil had a spare few hours, there was nothing he loved more than submerging himself into the solitude of his new basement studio. Down there, a revolution was slowly taking shape. Free of the annoying pressures and demands of the outside world, Neil was diligently experimenting with new musical formulas, new sounds, a whole new approach to his art. Indeed, the artist hadn't been this intimate with his muse since he was that schoolboy obsessed with mastering the guitar. Outside the studio, whenever Neil felt a craving to rush off and do a gig somewhere, anywhere, he'd simply grab his acoustic, walk down to the kids' school social or something and play a couple of songs. Yep, Neil was loving his new life in Auckland. A resident of Melbourne for 15 years, it had always been Neil's intention to eventually take his family back home, to be closer to his own mum and dad [Mary and Richard Finn who live in the New Zealand town of Cambridge] and to give his kids a chance to lead as blessed and family-orientated a childhood as his own. But domestic bliss and the high stakes game of international music marketing don't mix. It's family or fame. That's why Paul left. Neil knew this better than anyone. Crowded House's international successes owed everything to its constant touring, endless promotion. For his whole life, Neil had craved global recognition. He'd invested a lot of time and made many personal sacrifices to get it. Now that he had it, Neil Finn had nothing left to prove to himself, the race was over and he'd won. So Neil wanted to take it easier now, but he must have realised that moving back to New Zealand made the end of Crowded House inevitable. Still, beyond all this, if there was one defining moment in the slow demise of Crowded House, it came on another night in London, a few months before Paul left the band, as Neil sat chatting, as he regularly does, with his big brother, his mentor and best friend, Tim Finn. Needless to say, Neil and Tim, six years apart in age, had seen a lot together over time. Even if their childhoods were to be erased, the two had enough shared experience that they could under-study each other's starkingly contrasting personalities at the drop of an E minor. It was early 1994 and Crowded House were back in England to start touring their fourth studio album, Together Alone. It's strange to think that it had already been so long since that night in 1976 when Tim, living here in London at the time, put a call into the Finn household back in New Zealand and asked the adolescent Neil if he wanted to come over and join Split Enz. Of course, Tim already knew the answer to that � it had been the little nipper's life-long fantasy. Tim watched Neil blossom at an extraordinary rate. By the release of Split Enz seminal 1980 album, True Colours, it was obvious to everyone that the two brothers, in their own idiosyncratic ways, were of the same musical fibre and stature. Late in 1983, Tim Finn left the ensemble he had co-founded over a decade earlier. Split Enz should have been one of the biggest bands in the world by that stage, Tim knew that, everybody constantly told him so, but every time they'd got close, the cruel cosmos just wouldn't let it be. Not to mind because at that point of his life, Tim � thanks to his debut album Escapade � was the biggest music personality in Australasia. The following year, at the end of 1984, brother Neil wrapped up Split Enz. The 26-year-old felt like he'd served his apprenticeship and was keen to get out and make a name for himself with an outfit that was unmistakingly his own. Crowded House, as legend has it, was formed at the Split Enz break-up party in Melbourne. Neil and Paul had already discussed getting a new band together. On this night, a brash young lad called Nick Seymour glued himself to Neil and insisted he was the person to play bass in any new musical venture that might be happening. By early 1986, Crowded House (briefly known as the Mullanes and featuring a fourth member, guitarist Craig Hooper) sealed itself an American recording contract with Capitol and released its brilliant eponymous debut. This early Crowded House � dressed in quirky colourful suits and supplemented by Split Enz keyboardist Eddie Rayner � quickly developed an amazing live dynamic, pumped by a busker's ethic to entertain at all costs. In Melbourne around that time, Crowded House played constantly, everywhere. Clubs, backyards, streets, houses, roofs of city buildings, the Myer Music Bowl, Festival Hall. Soon its album topped the national charts, stayed in the top ten for an eternity. Next, its shtick downpat, Crowded House set out to conquer the world. Almost immediately, the Yanks fell in love with those three wacky blokes from downunder. By the middle of 1987, Crowded House had scored two top tens singles in America ("Don't Dream It's Over" and "Something So Strong") along with a top 10 album. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, English critics hated the band, wrote them off as dicky pop crap. That came as no surprise to Neil. After all, he put up with their slander for a decade in Split Enz. Temple Of Low Men followed in 1988. A much darker and more complex work, it was hard to believe this was the product of the same Crowded House that had recorded that first album. Neil Finn again showed that he was continuing to improve as a songwriter in quantum leaps. Another Australian number one, the album did little anywhere else in the world. That was the source of much angst, Neil constantly overcome with an anxiety that he had let his last chance at international acclaim slip through his fingers. At the end of 1989, with Neil struggling to find inspiration for a new Crowded House album, he sat down and co-wrote a batch of songs with Tim. It was the first time the two had ever collaborated and the intention was to make a low-key Finn Brothers album out of the session's magical results. But everything got railroaded into the Woodface project. Despite Tim's premature departure, that album would set up Crowded House for its eventual European domination. London fell the hardest. It was ironic that a city that had treated the Finn boys so harshly for so long had now chosen the brother's harmonies as its soothing soundtrack for its headiest times. So back to the start of 1994 and Neil and his journeyman older brother are sitting in a club in London, casually discussing the future. Neil wasn't looking forward to another year on the road but the dates were booked. The conversation suddenly got a bit rowdy and the two brothers made a pact then and there that once Crowded House had wrapped up its commitments to the Together Alone album, the next thing on the agenda was that bloody Finn brothers record. At the end of 1994, as Crowded House was declared most popular band in the UK by both critics (BRIT Awards) and fans (Q Magazine), Neil started telling everyone that he wanted to take a couple of years away from the band to do his own thing. A little over a year later � the start of 1996 � the Finn album emerged. It was a radical work brimming with grace and darkness, beauty and new sounds. Neil realised he wanted his music to move forward to these sorts of grooves. He gave Crowded House one more go, bringing the band back together early in 1996 to record a few new songs for inclusion on the greatest hits package. Even Paul was back. But Finn wasn't pleased with the results. "It didn't feel that good to me and it didn't suggest the way forward," he would later admit. "It just felt like we were in a holding pattern. That's when I started thinking really seriously about whether I wanted to continue with the band." SYDNEY, 24 NOVEMBER 1996 � Farewell to the world It's exactly the same perfect setting as last night but this is chaos. It's been hours since the police stopped letting anyone anywhere near the Opera House steps and they're estimating that nearly a quarter of a million people have gathered with in a couple kilometre radius of the stage. The ocean of humanity makes the Opera House look like its set sail. As Custard, Powderfinger and You Am I play support, kids are being pulled out of the crush near the stage at the rate of one a song. That escalates to three a song from the moment Crowded House hit the first notes of "Mean To Me". The next two hours are spellbinding, beyond description. If Neil Finn's life has been a musical quest for immortality, here is it. And the world is watching. So are his parents who have flown over from New Zealand to be in the audience. As Richard and Mary watch their son enchant the massive, besotted crowd with his special gift, Neil invites Tim to join him on stage for "It's Only Natural" and "Weather With You" and, seriously, it feels like the world sings along. A few days later, EMI, Crowded House's record company in Australia, sends out a fax to media claiming that this Sunday night was the largest gathering of humanity for a musical event anywhere in the world in 1996. MTV in Europe and America have scheduled to the air the show as its New Year's Eve special. Only a week after the gig, the concert is broadcast on Australian television and over one-and-a-half million people tune in. By the end of 1996, the five-month-old Recurring Dream is still on top of the charts. SYDNEY, THE MORNING AFTER � The last goodbyes As you would expect, Neil Finn looks tired and weary. It's midday before he emerges from his room to face the world media downstairs in the foyer his Sydney hotel. His eyes are dark and the hair is everywhere. He doesn't care. What's there to say anyway? Yes, of course last night was one of the peak moments of his life. How could it not be? "It's all a big blur," he confides more specifically once he's had a coffee. "We were looking at each other up there and you've got this massive thing going on in front of you. It's a weird feeling." And how about the end of it, where the four guys just stood there hugging each other as fireworks exploded and humanity waved goodbye in unison? "Yeah, it was very emotional. We didn't feel self-conscious about it. We'd been hugging each other in the dressing room half-an-hour before we went on as well. "I'm pleased in that in the course of this week, we've resolved certain lingering resentments about the way Paul left, whether the band should have gone on. There's been a lot of things flying around the last couple of years and a bit of estrangement here and there. I think one of the greatest things about this week was that we had just enough time to get close again and celebrate what we've been through and realise we had a lot more good things to remember than we had bad things. "It was a nice cap to the whole thing. I think we went out in a bit of style, didn't we?" Yeah, you could say that Neil. Over the next half hour, the members of Crowded House say goodbye to each other and set off for their different corners of the globe. Paul is off to Byron Bay for a holiday before returning to his cafe and studio in Melbourne. Mark is back off to LA to work with Supertramp on their reunion tour. Nick, who didn't get to sleep until five, is in a panic about getting back to Melbourne in time to learn all the songs of his new band, Deadstar, before next week's debut national tour. Before he takes off, Nick reiterates to an international film crew that he still believes this is all premature, that Crowded House still had its greatest album to record. But he understands why Neil has done this and, anyway, how could there be any regrets? As Paul goes to leave the hotel foyer with his young family, Neil grabs him for one last hug. "I haven't had a big cry yet," the singer whispers to the drummer. "Wasn't a bad week. We did it justice." *Dino Scatena is the music editor of Sydney's Daily Telegraph So thank God for Ben Mendelsohn. His camped-up, mischievous John easily steals the show. Not that the heavity-tattooed Kylie Minogue (Jess, the local gangster's in-house vixen) doesn't try her damnedest. But Kylie was probably too busy trying to took sultry in a drug-fucked way to notice she doesn't get many lines for a credits -topper (Lines of dialogue, that is). Incidentally, even though they don't appear on screen together at any point, this is the first time Mendelsohn and Minogue have worked together since The Henderson Kids (Channel 10) and Fame And Misfortune mini-series in 1985. The rest of the ensemble of Sample People is a mis-match of stereotypes. There�s speeders, trippers, wankers, Westies, roughs, dream boys, dream girls. There's even a local mystic: Phil (played by Ghandi Macintyre), the Indian proprietor of the kebab shop. He throws around proverbs such as: "Decide what to serve and serve it well." And: "You know, Len, milk is a real mover. The customer will come for the milk but, seeing other products, will also leave with the fizzy pop." Much Like Apu from the Kwik-E-Mart in The Simpsons, no? Still, some of the actors manage to make something out of not-a-lot. Journeyman actor David Field plays it straight and tough as the baddie TT (although he could have done without his character specifically verbalising the fact that he's simply a pastiche of every Robert De Niro and Al Pacino gangster that's beaten him to the big screen). While youngsters Joel Edgerton (Sam) and Paula Arundell (Cleo) are the most natural and believable things in the mash. In the end, it all comes out feeling a lot like Starstruck (d. Armstrong 1982) despite the producers obviously aiming at Pulp Fiction (d. Tarantino 1994). If there's a "Drugs are bad" message in there - if that's what Sample People is saying - then it sort of gets lost in the "Drugs are cool" images which make up much of the film. Now, discussions about explicit drug-use in cinema are about as boring as a psychedelic-scene-through-the-eyes-of-a-tripper (we get one of those here too), but surely no pusher in the world is going to be sad to see Kylie Minogue with a note jammed (literally) up her nose. Your business doesn't get that sort of free advertising every day. The writers and producers of Sample People obviously had too many influences pushing and putting at their thoughts white conceptualising this project. Maybe they should have listened to the character that shouts Out: "You're not in LA, bro." If their idea was to make the audience laugh nervously, sweat as much as the actors (all except a couple of the characters are constantly covered in a slight sheen of sweat for one reason or another), well then, where was the tension? It's just so bloody obvious so far out how all the story's subplots would eventually meet up. So you sit there waiting for Sample People to surprise you. And it never does.
