Liam Finn at The Sugar Club on July 15th 2011
Review by Nicola Byrne
Photos by Brian Dwyer
Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll aren’t on the agenda tonight at the Sugar Club. New Zealand native Liam Finn is in town, armed with a clean-living rider of fresh fruit, tea, and—judging by his energy throughout the night—a generous pitcher of Red Bull.
Support for the night comes from upcoming singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich, who oozes sentiment from the get-go. “Hi, I’m Ben,” he announces, before launching into a gentle strum of swaying folk. While undoubtedly talented, he failed to captivate the audience in their freshly arrived awkwardness. His delicate brand of folk often feels repetitive and seems to cause his set to mesh into one long, continuous track.
Liam arrives to little spectacle. Devoid of flashy entrances, he simply jumps on stage with an anticlimactic welcome. A sudden grimy riff reverberates through the Sugar Club, grabbing our attention with both hands. Finn quickly loops the sound and jumps behind a drum set, thumping the kit in an almost manic fashion.
This proves to be just one of the many examples we witness regarding Finn’s amazing multi-instrumental abilities. Finn is happiest when exploring every aspect of his music, not content with being a mere vocalist.
The pure glee he acquires from his instruments is obvious when he speaks of his giddiness at finally getting to play with his new ‘toy’. He sits himself behind a shiny new keyboard, and plays it for us with an almost boyish wonder.
To his left, stands the sturdy backbone of Liam’s band—tour mate Eliza-Jane Barnes. Dressed in a glittering ensemble, she demands our attention. The hammering harmonies she injects into tracks such as ‘Don’t Even Know Your Name’ remind us that she is there, just as we begin to slip. She and Finn have a great chemistry, with their Kiwi banter and a shared keenness to shake or bang anything nearby that they suspect may make a sound.
The set infuses trusty tracks from Finn’s first album, ‘I’ll be Lightning’, as well as complimentary songs from his latest effort, ‘FOMO’—a combination Liam admits “scares the shit” out of him. ‘Energy Spent’, ‘Better to Be’ and ‘Cold Feet’ really get the crowd bopping. The latter, Finn calls his “poppy single”, causing the crowd-pleaser to be overshadowed by this obvious lack of credibility Finn holds it under.
Just as we begin to suspect Finn’s energy may have faltered, he bounces off-stage and takes a victory lap of the Sugar Club in a similar fashion that I’d imagine a kid would, having just entered Disneyland and consumed a mug of coffee.
With a front-man father (Neil of Crowded House fame), music is clearly in Finn’s blood. He croons each track with an energy that is genuine, and infectious to his audience. He doesn’t seem to mind if he’s performing to 10 or 10,000. He’s having the time of his life, and we just happen to be watching.
“Whoever isn’t here should have FOMO,” proclaims Finn, explaining the meaning of his latest album title: an acronym of ‘Fear Of Missing Out’. And they should have, because their fear was realised. They had missed out.