Crowded House came to Melbourne and the whole night was wonderfully uncool

MUSIC
Crowded House | Gravity Stairs Tour ★★★★
Rod Laver Arena, December 10

Even before the band takes the stage tonight the tone is set: a guy behind me is explaining Spotify Wrapped to his dad. It’s an intergenerational crowd, a great opportunity for parents and (grown) kids to come together for some music they’ve always sort of agreed on.

Crowded House perform at Rod Laver Arena, December 10, 2024.Credit: Richard Clifford

That plays out on stage too. Not only does Neil Finn write the songs, he’s also co-created two fifths of this version of the band – sons Liam and Elroy Finn, on guitar and drums respectively, bring a new energy to the group. Tonight their influence is felt on the old material, including some dreamy harmonies, and the new, like The Other, a just-released song by Elroy that the band has adopted as their own.

The proximity of his sons only elevates Neil Finn’s daggy dad presence, notably telling anecdotes about the birth of both sons. If the presence of your dad reminiscing about your birth makes it hard to maintain rockstar confidence, the brothers hide it well.

Meanwhile founding bassist Nick Seymour runs around like a funny uncle and producer-turned-member Mitchell Froom hides behind some keyboards.

Everyone’s known each other for over 30 years, and playing together seems like the easiest thing in the world. At one point Liam’s son Buddy, about eight years old, wanders on stage to hand his granddad an acoustic, and let his dad know he’ll be heading off at 10pm. It’s all wonderfully uncool.

Everyone’s known each other for over 30 years, and playing together seems like the easiest thing in the world.Credit: Richard Clifford

There’s a bit of recent material woven in, some even going back as far as Split Enz (Message To My Girl), but the best Crowded House remains their late ’80s/early ’90s heyday. Even tonight’s set design, a spaghetti of knotted felt, looks like something from the early ’90s, with that whimsical grandiosity that typified the era.

Their best songs have that too. Don’t Dream It’s Over, their biggest hit. Weather with You, their most potent. And Four Seasons In One Day – tonight dedicated to the memory of former bandmate Paul Hester – their most beautiful.
Reviewed by Will Cox

MUSIC
Handel’s Messiah ★★★★
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Hamer Hall, December 14

Handel’s Messiah remains a popular and robust classic. This year, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra ensured a wider audience for this holiday tradition by touring the oratorio to West Gippsland, Geelong and Bendigo before its customary Melbourne performances.

Early music specialist and MSO artist in residence Erin Helyard

Directing from the harpsichord, early music specialist and MSO artist in residence Erin Helyard brought his expertise to matters of orchestral articulation and ornamentation, resulting in some admirably nuanced instrumental colours and textures. Such finesse ensured the ensemble never overpowered the MSO chorus or the soloists.

Those who know Messiah well and have their favourite movements may have cavilled with Helyard’s decision to present a significantly abridged account, jettisoning a fair amount of material from the second and third parts, including some popular arias such as How beautiful are the feet. Even so, this version clocked up some two hours of music.

Perhaps channelling Handel’s theatrical temperament, Helyard was unafraid of extremes of tempo and dynamics, for example presenting a surprisingly relaxed Overture, but gingering up the celebrated Hallelujah with a dramatic final crescendo.

It is not only conductors who want to put their stamp on Messiah. Soloists soprano Cathy-Di Zhang and alto Helen Sherman offered at times some rather overblown embellishments, while tenor Michael Petruccelli and bass David Greco were more discreet and hence more effective communicators. Partnering with Owen Morris’s golden-toned trumpet, Greco invested The trumpet shall sound with a notably grave sincerity.

Numbering some 80 singers, the entire chorus was placed on stage, a move that aided the acoustic projection of its energy and clarity. Occasionally, the sopranos and tenors seemed tinged with vocal fatigue, no doubt a result of having already sung the work three times.

While there will never be a perfect Messiah, this year’s offering still strongly testified to Handel’s creative genius in creating an evergreen popularity.
Reviewed by Tony Way

THEATRE
Twelfth Night ★
Melbourne Shakespeare Company, St Kilda Botanical Gardens, until December 22

Even by the elastic standards of al fresco Shakespeare, this Twelfth Night is dire. Audiences should not expect a production in the same league as the Melbourne Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet, directed by Iain Sinclair in September with an astonishing cast of actors. No, this is pop Shakespeare so amateurish that it barely touches the sides of the gender-bending rom-com.

A scene from Twelfth Night by Melbourne Shakespeare Company.Credit: Nick Robertson

A loose musical approach and broad panto comedy worked fine in the MSC’s rose garden production of The Merry Wives of Windsor – a low comedy (written because Queen Elizabeth I wanted a Falstaff spin-off, according to theatre legend) that’s as close as Shakespeare came to ringing it in. That same tactic doesn’t fly with Twelfth Night, which ties romantic knots of a more various, delicate and melancholy hue.

Such nuances get short shrift in this radically condensed version, which has been hatcheted down to 90 minutes, the bare plot points squished around an extended playlist of a cappella pop songs. These are performed with gusto, though the musical choices get increasingly bizarre – Doris Day, the Spice Girls, and, er, Chumbawamba? – and there are so many of them the novelty wears thin.

Virtually no scene remains unpopped by pop songs; if the musical enthusiasm never flags, an undercurrent of desperation creeps in, like a jam session in someone’s dad’s garage that’s gotten way out of hand.

Compared with the acting, however, the songs seem the lesser of two evils. The script has indeed been savagely cut, but the fatalistic embrace of broad caricature comes across as a cringing admission of defeat, a betrayal of the complex, psychologically astute seductions and follies Shakespeare wove into this play.

This version of Twelfth Night has been cut down to 90 minutes.Credit: Nick Robertson

Music might be the food of love. It’s no substitute for a talented Shakespearean performance, however, and with few exceptions, the actors seem intent on grinding Twelfth Night into a so-bad-it’s-unspeakable cult comedy.

Had the cast been able to give us a few more of the play’s greatest hits, the surfeit of song would have been forgivable, and this production might have approached the general standard of Australian Shakespeare Company’s annual pop Shakespeare in the Royal Botanic Gardens. Those al fresco productions can be rough and ready and pander to the groundlings, too, but unlike this musical mess, still tend to deliver the guts of the play.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

JAZZ
Strange Attractors + Andrea Keller’s Transients ★★★★
Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival, The JazzLab, December 9

One of the hallmarks of the Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival – curated each year by the tireless Sonja Horbelt – is its presentation of double-bill concerts on most nights. Horbelt, who assembles the program each year with minimal funding and maximum dedication, aims to provide opportunities for as many artists as possible, and the double bills are often designed to present acts with contrasting rather than complementary approaches.

Jess Green and Dylan van der Schyff performing at The JazzLab on Monday.Credit: Roger Mitchell

A case in point: Monday night’s pairing of Strange Attractors with Andrea Keller’s Transients. The former featured two artists constructing fully improvised soundscapes; the latter featured a beguiling set of carefully crafted compositions.

Strange Attractors (guitarist Jess Green and drummer Dylan van der Schyff) is inspired by nature’s propensity to forge patterns out of chaos. Green and van der Schyff are only occasional duo partners, but their rapport was palpable as they embarked on a spontaneous exploration of texture, tone, energy and rhythm. Traditional instrumental roles were eschewed in favour of a free-flowing exchange of sounds and ideas. Green scratched or tapped percussively on her strings, and van der Schyff switched between sticks, mallets, bare hands and cymbals to conjure images of swarming insects or clouds scudding swiftly across a turbulent sky.

Keller’s set served as an album launch for the latest recordings in her long-running Transients project, in which the pianist works with an evolving roster of musicians in small-group settings. On this occasion, she shared the stage with three wonderfully empathetic colleagues (Angela Davis on alto sax, Sam Anning on bass and Kyrie Anderson on drums), performing selections from Transients Vol. 3 (For Sorrow) and Vol. 4 (For Joy).

Andrea Keller’s set served as an album launch for the latest recordings in her long-running Transients project.Credit: Jamil Nawaz

Keller’s exquisite melodies and inventive arrangements were enhanced by the band’s ability to intuitively shape the mood of each piece, from the insouciance of Carefree Daze to the quiet optimism of Hope is the Thing with Feathers – something to hold on to, perhaps, as another tumultuous year nears its end.
Reviewed by Jessica Nicholas

The Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival continues until Sunday.

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