A little more on
Crowded House after watching their final concert and all the old and new documentaries last night.
For those not in the know:
Neil Finn was 16 when he joined his brother
Tim Finn's experimental band,
Split Enz, in the late 1970s. Although they were "kinda" popular in their native Australia and New Zealand, it wasn't until Neil started writing songs like
"I See Red" and
"History Never Repeats" that they became popular. Then, because the band was loosing its experimental edge, they decided to break up.
Neil started Crowded House with drummer
Paul Hester and a bassist they found,
Nick Seymour. Immediately their debut became popular with
"Don't Dream It's Over" and
"Something So Strong." Their second, darker album was a critical success, but met with less sales.
For their third album, brother Tim Finn joined (for a short while).
For their fourth album, they hired
Mark Hart.
Slowly, they were gaining critical and European and world success while their sales were faltering in America. But there was always a sense that they were going to be a great band. They beat out
U2, REM, and
Nirvana as best live band in European awards over and over. Though Crowded House put out critically acclaimed albums that rose slowly in world sales, people were waiting for that one great album that would tip them over into
super-stardom.
Then drummer Paul Hester - suffering from depression - quit the band. Soon after, Neil - who wrote all the songs but four - said it was over.
Their concert in Sydney was
always billed as their last concert.
Neil went on to work solo and with brother Tim on small but critically successful albums. he has 2 solo albums, 2 albums with his brother, and one brilliant live
album with guests Eddie
Vedder (of Pearl Jam), Johnny
Marr (of The Smiths) and more.
Nick produced in Dublin, and he plays bass for a successful local Irish band.
9 years later, after his mildly successful TV show got
canceled and he sat around depressed for three years, Paul Hester hung himself in a public park.
A few things I’
ve noticed after watching concert and documentaries last night last night
- It seems they ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to mention the suicide or to pay a memoriam to Paul in the current documentaries and interviews. Strange. They mention drummer Paul Hester a lot, but there is no sense of what happened to him – once, it is mentioned that he is dead.
- During the current Neil/Nick interviews, for much of the time, bassist Nick Seymour seems unwilling to engage. Instead he is looking to the side away from Neil and NOT LOOKING HAPPY. Only late does he engage a little, and he’s critical. Then he goes back into looking at the side and scowling more. There is obviously some bad blood here.
- One music critic stated that Crowded House was the band most people would want to run away with. They seemed genial guys, and they looked like they were having fun. The image from the outside was that joining Crowded House was the more convivial version of running away to join the circus. However, their image as a happy-go-lucky band gets a bit destroyed here.
- Also, it is very, very clear that this was Neil’s band to keep going or to stop. It is obvious that he wrote all but a handful of the songs, and that he was the major musical force. Which makes one wonder why he went with a band after Split
Enz and not solo until years later. It’s as if he wanted to create a surrogate family, and after Paul left, Neil clearly decided that that family was divorced – that Crowded House would be no more.
- It makes one wonder about the different nature of bands. With
Duran Duran, it’s clear one of them brings something to the table and all band members have a go at shaping it in one way or another. In the
Beatles, there were Paul songs, John songs, a few George song, and Ringo screwing around mostly. In Crowded House, except for literally 4 songs, they were all Neil’s. Bassist Nick did the artwork, Paul and was the goof and the social/public image of the band. Why
didn’t Neil go solo? I think there is a clue in that Neil seems to have thought of the band also as an
itinerant family.
- Which brings us to Nick Seymour. He admits then and now that he felt there was one more great album in them. He says over and over – then and now – that he was downright shocked and surprised that both Paul and Neil admitted they
didn’t want to be the best band in the world – that both Paul (who was starting to sink into depression) and Neil were sick of touring and wanted a private life. I think this devastated Nick. I believe he saw his job in the band to be one of the greatest champions of Neil’s musical genius, and he was flabbergasted that Neil himself
wouldn’t go for it.
- Which brings us to Tim, who joined them for one album:
Woodface. Obviously, he and his younger brother Neil wrote brilliant songs for the album
Woodface. But that on stage, he was “just up there shaking a tambourine.” Here, Neil’s talent had so permeated the band by that third album that Tim – himself a founding member of Split
Enz and the champion of Neil’s early career – found he was never going to creatively be equal to the stuff his little brother had already done. Imagine being a talented musician and a mentor, and then having your little brother so overshadow you talent-wise and media-wise like that. That’s why he left the bad – with no major hard feelings – half-way through the
Woodface tour.
- Which brings us to
keyboardist/guitarist Mark Hart, who joined them for their last two albums. I think he always saw himself as a hired gun. I also think he knew he’d never have as great a job as Crowded House, and that he wanted to BECOME a part of the band, that he – like Nick – felt they left the game too early and that there was still one great album in them.
- So much revolved around Neil’s talent and Paul’s outgoing stage antics and artwork. How hard it must’
ve been that Neil can be so insular. And then when Paul’s depression would start to rear its angry head, it must’
ve been devastating.
- All this may kill the image of Crowded House as a genial, fun-loving band. But I still think a large part of that image was true.
- Neil was supposed to tell the world on stage in June 1996 that the band was over, but he just
couldn’t. He said, “We are all looking forward to the future with relish.” That was it. If he thought of them as a family, then this breakup must’
ve been too hard to admit in public.
- Which gave the possibility for this one great concert in front of 120,000+ fans in their home country. It could’
ve been seen as maudlin or even gauche, but I think it was a lovely celebration of 10 years of amazing music. It’s really worth that after you know the entire back story. How heart-breaking it is to hear Hole in the River (the song about Neil's aunt's suicide) on-stage and live, knowing that 9 years later drummer Paul would kill himself. How amazing Don't Dream it's Over is as a final song of the final concert. It just makes it even more incredible. Maybe Crowded House was on the cusp of U2-like or REM-like greatness. Who can say? We’ll never know.
