After disbanding and the suicide of their drummer, Crowded House has reunited, touring behind their new album, which deals with those themes of life and loss.
Their latest stop brought them to the cozy Greek Theater, which I was glad to finally see a concert at. Lacking prerequisite female companion for the pop-rock nostalgia, I conned Scartoe into going. Much like the Rush concert, we were in the younger minority, but instead of greying comic book reading geeks, this was an NPR nerd crowd. The last time I had the chance to see the band, they were at the supercool Arlington in Santa Barbara in '96, and the show had a younger crowd.
Crowded House followed a brief set by Liam Finn (son of CH's singer/guitarist Neil) which kicked ass and a half hour of bland, forgettable music by Pete Yorn. Finn, playing mostly guitar, looped parts as he sang, adding drums and even theremin -- it was a pretty impressive one-man showing. He was flawlessly able to start and stop the multiple parts between the instruments besides showing competency as a songsmith, and later played with Crowded House. Yorn, on the other hand, tried to make like the E Street Band, with at many points four guitars playing the same thing. His music was so inoffensive it became offensive. And he strangely finished with a cover of a PB&J tune that was awesomely anti-climactic.
Their latest stop brought them to the cozy Greek Theater, which I was glad to finally see a concert at. Lacking prerequisite female companion for the pop-rock nostalgia, I conned Scartoe into going. Much like the Rush concert, we were in the younger minority, but instead of greying comic book reading geeks, this was an NPR nerd crowd. The last time I had the chance to see the band, they were at the supercool Arlington in Santa Barbara in '96, and the show had a younger crowd.
Crowded House followed a brief set by Liam Finn (son of CH's singer/guitarist Neil) which kicked ass and a half hour of bland, forgettable music by Pete Yorn. Finn, playing mostly guitar, looped parts as he sang, adding drums and even theremin -- it was a pretty impressive one-man showing. He was flawlessly able to start and stop the multiple parts between the instruments besides showing competency as a songsmith, and later played with Crowded House. Yorn, on the other hand, tried to make like the E Street Band, with at many points four guitars playing the same thing. His music was so inoffensive it became offensive. And he strangely finished with a cover of a PB&J tune that was awesomely anti-climactic.
The Kiwis were chipper, engaging the audience with jokes about the observatory and the Greek facilities, and breaking into a couple of improvised songs. Unlike the review from Shira of their Coachella performance, this set was tightly performed. They managed to play a good selection from all their albums, raising coos and cheers with each surprise in the set list, and several tunes I was looking forward to hearing were indeed played.
Given the chaos of my daytime, this was a wonderful diversion for a night.
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