NEIL FINN AND FRIENDS - 7 WORLS COLLIDE DVD
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Neil Finn was the lead singer songwriter with Crowded House, a band that has released so many top songs.

Crowded House were a well loved pop band from New Zealand and Australia, They released some quite outstanding albums, with songs which still receive lots of airplay on radios all around the country to this day, such as 'Dont dream its over' and 'Weather with you'

Neil was also a member of late 70's new wave band, Split Enz, with his brother Tim Finn.

After Crowded House split in 1994, Neil went on to record an album with his brother and two well received solo albums.

ABOUT THE DVD
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This dvd was recorded live over the course of a weeks set of concerts, all at St. James theatre, Auckland.
The idea was for Neil to assemble a band of well respected musicians and perform a few gigs without being pressurised into being an actual band.

Neil got some top musicians in to play with him, these included Pearl Jam lead singer, Eddie Vedder.
Radiohead's Guitarist and drummer Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway.
Johnny Marr, who was best known for his guitar duties with classic 80's band The Smiths.
He also enlisted the help of his brother and his teenage son, among others.

The band had only a week to rehearse the tunes, and surprisingly it all went very smoothly.

The dvd contains 26 of the tracks recorded over this week of concerts, with songs ranging from the early days of Split Enz all through to Neil's solo material.
There are also some covers and songs from the other artists material.

The first five minutes or so of the dvd has some black and white footage, showing the band coming together, with Neil talking about the concept of the album.
This is carried on during the course of the dvd, with little incepts about the members etc.

THE DVD
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As it has 26 songs im not going to talk about every one of them, but just a selection of the best and worst.

---FALL AT YOUR FEET---

This starts with just Neil and his acoustic guitar, strumming the beautiful song.
Shortly afterwards Lisa Germano comes in playing the keyboard, and providing backing vocals.
The song is a slowly sung almost ballad like pop tune, with some clever lyrics.
Halfway through Neil gets the crowd to join in, its then that you realize quite how many fans are there to see this living legend.
Great opener.

---ANYTIME---

This is a song about Neil's dog being hit by a car, and Neil realising that life is so short, and we could go at any time.
The song has a nice acoustic tune behind it, which gives Neil a perfect backing to paint his great vocals over.
The music is never overpowering, and lets the song lead the way,

---HOLE IN THE ICE---

This was released as a single, and unfortunately never really got noticed.
This shows Neil's great talent at writing a great song with a fantastic chorus.
The tune has a nice electric guitar sound running behind it, with a very simple riff, interspersed with some clever solo's.
The backing vocals are perfect, just adding enough to the track, without overtaking Neil's fantastic singing.

---PAPER DOLL---

This song is written and sung by Lisa Germano, whom I really don't know anything about.
The song is nice enough, but Lisa's vocals are not strong enough to go up next to Neil's or Eddies.
The song is pleasant enough, with its slowly plucked guitar sound building up to a much faster paced sound.
Then it all stops suddenly, that's the end of the song, it was just getting good as well!

---TAKE A WALK---

This is Eddie Vedder's first vocal performance with the 'Band', Eddie usually associated with the grungy sound of Pearl Jam pulls this off with surprisingly top quality.
As a fan of pearl jam, im probably a bit biased, but he adds a dimension to Neil's music which doesn't normally exist, Eddies style is more like an extra instrument than an actual vocal.
Neil adds a great backing vocal, which seeing as its his song, really gives it its own identity.
The song has a nice simple riff going behind it, with some good drumming from Radiohead's Phil Selway.
Again, this song shines of Neil Finn, with its fantastic chorus and verses.
Any fans of Crowded House will like this, but so will any fans of Pearl Jam.

---DOWN ON THE CORNER---

This is Johhny Marr's only lead vocal performance, written by himself, it is a nice tune, which shines of British pop rock.
Think Oasis, Stone Roses or the Charlatans and you have the basic picture.
With this song Johnny really doesn't take in his history in The Smiths, but still offers a nice track, but it never really fits on this collection of some of the best pop tunes ever written.

---THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT---

This is a cover of the classic Smith's song, with Neil providing Morissey's vocals.
Neil could almost be Morissey, his vocals are so close to the original that you have to check that its him singing.
As Johnny Marr is providing guitars, this is almost identical to the original in terms of sound, but it really shows that Neil has some outstanding vocals to be able to do a Smiths song as good, if not better than, Morissey.

---PRIVATE UNIVERSE---

This is one of the best songs released ever.
Originally from the Together Alone album, this is a slow ballad type song, which really is Neil's best territory.
With a slowly strummed guitar, giving a sense of loneliness.
The backing vocals from Lisa add something that was missing from the original, but it never fulfills the promise of the album track.

---PARTING WAYS---

A Pearl Jam song, which was never one of my favourites, it is a slow, almost lullaby type tune, with Eddie singing some good vocals over the top.
Eddie has such better songs than this, but it is one of his favourites so give him his dues for standing for what he likes.
The song has a strange guitar sound, and doesn't really contain a chorus or a verse for that matter, but is an alright song.
Eddie could have chosen a better song, but any promotion of Pearl Jam is good.
This version sounds a bit different from the album version, and all credit to Johnny and Ed O'Brien for giving the song a different sounding guitar.

---TURN AND RUN--

This song really shows Neil's vocals, with some really nice sounding verses.
The backing vocals are again provided by Lisa Germano, which really adds a nice foil to Neil's male lead vocals.
The song has a mid paced tempo, with some interesting guitar picking flowing throughout the tune.

---SHE WILL HAVE HER WAY---

This was Neil's first hit solo single, and it did quite well in the charts.
A song that shows Neil hasn't lost any of the tunesmanship that he learnt as a Crowded Houser.
Starting like the classic song it should be, with a great acoustic riff, soon kicking in with Neil's lovely vocals.
This is one of those songs that every musician would have liked to write, almost a perfect piece of pop music.
It also shows the Radiohead lads performing a track that would benefit Thom Yorke.

---ANGELS HEAP---

This is the first song to feature Neil's older brother Tim, the song features some very nice harmonies, when the two sing together it sounds so right.
The tune is fairly simple with just two acoustic guitars and a bass, all strumming away in an almost folksy way.
Originally from the Finn album, this is as good as the recorded version, and is the first of many to show how well these two brothers get on.

---HISTORY NEVER REPEATS---

This is an old Split Enz tune, which Eddie does the vocals on.
Pearl Jam have been playing this song live for many years, and Eddies love for the song shows.
The backing band for this song are Neil's sons band, Betchadupa.
The song starts with a nice little chuggy riff, quite punky.
The youthful band seem to be really enjoying playing this song with one of their heroes.
This is one of the rockier efforts on the set, and it breaks up the slow tunes nicely.

---DONT DREAM ITS OVER---

What better, more fitting way to end this dvd, than with don't dream its over.
Neil does this with just an acoustic guitar and an organ, and the stripped down sound gives so much more emphasis on Neil's lyrics and vocals.
The way the crowd goes quiet is almost breath taking, and the song gives me goosebumps each time I hear it.
A beautiful way to end a great selection of timeless classics.

I missed out a fair few good songs along the way, these are also as good as the ones mentioned, but I didn't want to bore you to tears!

OVERALL
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Well, its over then!
This is a must for fans of Neil's material, although there are some glaring omissions from the set list, like how come Distant Sun isn't on here, even though the title is taken from that song!

Overall though it is a nice one to play in the background, and maybe watch every now and then, but it wont stay in your player all the time.

There is also a cd version available, but that only has half of the songs from this set on it.

Expect to pay between 10 and 20 pound for this.

Thanks for reading.

Kyle.