Last night at Wolfbrook Arena in Christchurch, Crowded House did the unthinkable – they got a polite New Zealand concert crowd to break the rules.

Here’s something I’ve observed about concert attendance in the north vs the south. Where most Aucklanders will bustle in just as the main act takes the stage, likely wearing athleisure and probably still carrying their work laptop, Cantabrians make an event of an arena concert. They show up as the doors open, they dine out on the weirdly fancy food options (Super Greens Orecchiette Salad???) and they dress to impress. A guy sitting in front of us was using binoculars like he was at the opera, and I saw a kid wearing, no word of a lie, a little suit. 

All the seats were basically full as Crowded House’s support act Mel Parsons kicked off the evening with her brand of local indie folk. Also in the band was her brother Jed Parsons, establishing the onstage family connections that appeared mandatory for the evening. I’ll admit that we got absorbed in the merch and snack lines (former Aucklanders) and only caught the very end of her set, which closed out with the gloomy country twangs of ‘Glass Heart’, a song produced by Crowded House’s own keyboardist Mitchell Froom. Connections, connections everywhere. 

Giant fuzzy intestinal shapes, also evoking germs under a microscope, were soon lit up in technicolour onstage as Crowded House came bounding out a short while later, each excitedly waving lanterns like dandy innkeepers. With Neil Finn’s sons Liam and Elroy in the current iteration of the band, my plus one wondered if they felt awkward singing the opening song – ‘When You Come’ – with their Dad. Much later in the set, Neil would make a racy joke about the racy tune, telling Liam “I actually think it has a lot of relevance to your life.” 

Jokes like that flowed like Super Greens Orecchiette Salad all night, as if we were at a loose late night jazz bar, rather than an arena spectacular. “Interesting moat at the front here,” Neil riffed at one point. “Wonder if they fill it with water? Perhaps cheese? Christchurch, is fondue back?” Inexplicably, the crowd yelled “YEEESSS”. “And what about swingers’ parties?” Neil had gone a step too far. “CHRISTCHURCH DOES NOT SWING!” someone yelled back, compelled to maintain the city’s reputation for as being as square as its gridlike street system. 

Although it was floor seating, there was one battler who immediately stood up and did air guitar from the very first song, rising again to point to the skies for ‘Fall at Your Feet’. Though the crowd largely stayed stock still, the dynamic band more than made up for it onstage. Neil and bassist Nick Seymour did Danny and Sandy “You’re the one that I want” moves back and forth, and Liam gave huge Jack Black in School of Rock energy, throwing his head back in ecstasy, and kicking around the stage in his paisley shirt and silk maroon pants. 

While the banter and the boogying from the band felt spontaneous, the carefully planned lighting design impressively transformed the intestinal backdrop to suit every song. During ‘To The Island’ it plunged into paua shell blues and purples, the germ shapes morphing into coral, and Neil becoming a merman conductor of sorts. For ‘Message to My Girl’, the stage flushed Barbie pink and then emerald green. Is the message to his girl that Neil Finn wants to… go to Wicked? Stranger things have happened. “There’s a scent of Pernod in the air,” Neil mused. What?

With a mix of new songs and all the old favourites, the tail end of the set was an absolute murderer’s row of hits. Mr Air Guitar was out of his seat again and throwing his fist up, Breakfast Club style, for ‘Four Seasons in One Day’. As the band launched into ‘Mean to Me’, he left his row and jogged up to Neil’s fondue moat at the front. More and more people rose out of their seats and flooded in to join him, a beefy security guard angrily pointing at everyone to get back to their seats. Christchurch may not be a city of swingers, but we are a city of dancers.

“Hey, these people down the front? They want to dance,” Neil chided security from the stage. “So maybe you should gracefully remove yourself, man.”

Everyone was absolutely locked in by the time they got to ‘Locked Out’. “It’s nice to actually see all of ya,” Neil beamed at the newly-formed mosh pit, now a couple hundred strong. “Lots of clean teeth.” What? No time to explain, need to get to ‘Now We’re Getting Somewhere’ and, of course, ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ for the big pre-encore closer. This might be another basic School of Rock-style observation from me, but is there anything more comforting, more hopeful in the whole word than the “hey now, hey now” of ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’? 

As someone who cries easily, hearing thousands of New Zealanders singing that gentle, assuring refrain, especially during what has been a very intense week for the whole country, left me in tatters. A thousand kilometres away, Coldplay’s Chris Martin was pelting Eden Park with beach balls, laser lights and puppets, but I just can’t imagine it was as striking a spectacle as Neil Finn, swinging a solitary lantern around the stage, singing one of the greatest New Zealand songs of all time. I look forward to hearing it at many Crowded House-themed fondue parties to come. 

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