SplaTT's Blog

10 years with no Crowded House

It was about this hour ten years ago (November 24th 1996) that the amazing band, Crowded House (wikipedia entry), started to play their last ever concert - the "Farewell to the World" concert - to a huge crowd of between 100,000 and 120,000 people on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.

It was an amazing concert, and as a Crowded House fan who was living in Sydney at the time, it was not something i was going to miss. Along with Cindy (a close friend and another fan who grew up listening to the boys albums) and what was possibly an audience that was part of the largest ever outdoor concert held in Australia at the time, we watched Neil Finn, Paul Hester, Nick Seymour, Eddie Rayner, Mark Hart and Tim Finn play a brilliant show after it had been postponed from the previous day due to crappy weather.

It was spellbinding to stand there and with over 100,000 other people to sing along with band as they played a great selection of songs from the four albums that they had released, and to have the whole band on stage together after Paul Hester had left them a few years earlier, was a great way to close-up a brilliant career.

Original t-shirt sold at the show...worn so often its all faded

When i was growing up in Melbourne, my friends and i had gone to see Crowded House on every occasion we could, but the best show by far was a show that we saw at St Kilda's "The Venue" before it closed down in 1988 for Simons (my best mate) 18th Birthday. I've had a lot of history and great times growing up listening to their music...plus the band we put together as teenagers played a lot of their songs, so their music was truly a part of my everyday life for a number of years.

I'm not kidding when i say i loved all of their songs and I really can't pick one that i don't like, but for a number of reasons one of my real favourite has got to be "Into Temptation".

But back to the concert...the last song of the last concert was fittingly "Don't Dream its Over", and i can remember that by the end of what was an amazing day, we were so tired and sad that it was ending that we ended up sitting on the benches on the side of the Opera House facing the Harbour Bridge singing along with the crowd. When the song had finished the fireworks started probably no more than about 50 meters away from us.

T-shirt packaged with original VHS tape of show

It was a fitting end to an amazing band. Thanks for the great music and the great memories Crowded House :)

The video below is of "Don't Dream its Over" - the last song they played.

More YouTube videos from the "Farewell to the World" concert

There is also a new 10th Anniversary DVD and CD of the "Farewell to the World" concert available.

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If you are in Australia you can grab it at JB Hi-Fi (DVD - CD) or from Amazon if you want to wait a bit longer (DVD - CD)

Posted by Mick (SplaTT) Stanic at November 24, 2006 6:47 PM | TrackBack