Crowded House @ Metropolis

Aaaaaaah, Crowded House.  When I saw them pop on the list of possible shows to review I jumped at the chance, more out of a weird sense of nostalgia, instead of... Being an actual fan.  See, I don’t actually own any Crowded House records (actually, I think I may own one), but I remember them being a mainstay on the radios in my sisters’ rooms when I was growing up.  What made it even better was that my sister, who lives out of town, was visiting the date of the show and I managed to convince her to come along.  The funny part? Between the two of us, we could only remember maybe five or six Crowded House songs.

“Well, chances are they’ll play those ones at least, so we’ll know something…”

After a humourous exchange with a scalper outside, we managed to make our way in to find a seated audience in front of the band in the middle of what was a great version of “Private Universe” from Together Alone.  Also, um, the hall was about 3/4 full…whodathunk…Crowded House apparently can still…er…crowd a house.

Snappily dressed, the quartet’s new “reunion” lineup featured only Nick Finn and Nick Seymour from the original lineup.  Early sideman Mark Hart,  who eventually became an official member, is also part of the current lineup, and Matt Sherrod, Beck’s drummer, took over for original member Paul Hester, who took his own life after a battle with depression in 2005.  Clearly demonstrating his frontman skills, Finn would randomly converse with the audience (the usual “hey we’re in Quebec, so let’s try to speak some French in an effort to win these people over” was employed here and there), even performing a couple songs solo on the piano up front.  The stage was decorated with some small knick-knacks here and there, and a few plastic ducks and random lights dotted around, with a large screen behind them which had occasional designs, or what looked like paintings splayed across it, and the lights were used subtly, but in a good way to help convey tone here and there.  If anything, this was a very grown-up sorta show and for once I felt like the youngest in the crowd as opposed to one of the eldest (you wacky kids!). 

Taking the opportunity to change up classics in a way to keep them fresh to them, and add a bit of a new turn for the audience, some of the songs saw some interesting changes. “Private Universe” was drawn out, complete with delay pedal tomfoolery and an interesting take on the drum pattern of the studio version, and the lengthy performance coaxed a standing ovation from the once seated crowd (after this, a large part of the audience stood up and moved to the front).  “Chocolate Cake” had a swampy organ on top of it, with the tempo slowed down a tad making maybe a bit less fun than the original, but giving it a new blues flavour.  Their most recognized song, and in my opinion arguably one of the best pop songs ever written, “Don’t Dream It’s Over” had some interesting backing vocal overlaps on the chorus and a slight phrasing change that gave the song a nice shift before they switched out the coda for a few bars of “All I Have to Do is Dream” by the Everly Brothers.  And main set closer, “Distant Sun”, sounded peppier (it actually took me a couple bars to recognize it) and had a neat vocal heavy closing.  Me and the sis were eating it up, feeding off of the great energy both band and crowd were nurturing, cheering randomly to whatever song was played, with yours truly re-enacting Howard Dean’s DNC rally scream as my choice of cheer routine (seriously, I got this down).

In the end, the nice thing was all four of them seemed to be having a great time on stage. 

Even if this is some sort of cash grab reunion, the guys sincerely look like they’re enjoying playing old songs and new.  Fun night overall, and the show closing “Better Be Home Soon” was a fitting end.  What’d we end up doing next? Traversing construction-weary, cracked Ste-Catherine on Bixi bikes…that’s how siblings bond, my babies... dangerously.