On the Saturday night, Tim Finn asked the audience if anyone had been to their legendary Buck-A-Head concerts in their early Auckland days at His Majesty\u2019s and Mercury theatres to a smattering of cheers, which invited the Neil Finn joke that some of the crowd could have been conceived after their parents went to the concerts. <\/p>\n
Neil Finn on stage during the band’s Forever ENZ reunion tour. Photo Tom Grut<\/p>\n
And as much as serious NZ music buffs hold up the band\u2019s debut album Mental Notes<\/a> as the classic, predictably the biggest singalongs were the band\u2019s later hits \u2013 I Got You, I See Red, Six Months in a Leaky Boat. All told, the Enz played more than 20 songs from across their career. Before the video-screen curtains went up, there was footage from a time when the band only existed on our televisions in black and white. But making an entrance in a giant sack in a nod to their theatrical beginnings, here they were back in living colour, a core of Tim and Neil Finn, Eddie Rayner, and Noel Crombie, joined by the tour ring-in rhythm section of bassist James Milne and drummer Matt Eccles. <\/p>\n If there was one song I would have liked to hear this time, that wasn\u2019t played, it would be Charlie. <\/p>\n Russell Baillie<\/p>\n Russell Baillie: Before we get to the shows, what are everyone\u2019s past experiences with seeing Split Enz? <\/p>\n Russell Brown: I saw them at the Theatre Royal in Christchurch, but the one I really remember is 1984, when they went home to Te Awamutu and played the main rugby ground. I see that I described it as \u201cgenuinely warm\u201d in Rip It Up, and that it \u201cbroke clear of the scriptedness and uptightness\u201d of recent years. These new shows have a bit of that \u2013 they\u2019re enjoying themselves and enjoying playing those songs.<\/p>\n It was also nice to be reminded on the night of the first time I became aware of them \u2013 watching New Faces on TV in 1973. I would have been 11, and without really knowing it, craving any bit of weirdness New Zealand\u2019s bland stew of a culture might let slip my way. <\/p>\n Kirsty Cameron: I saw Enz at Sweetwaters, but my formative and most memorable Enz event was at the Auckland Town Hall in 1979, which Google tells me was the Give It a Whirl tour. I was still at school and Split Enz were huge for many in my year group, not least because Eddie Rayner was also from Howick and therefore the one cool person, we could claim a tenuous connection to. Howick back then seemed liked the least interesting place ever, and that town hall gig pretty much proved it \u2013 that there was a whole other, really interesting world out there. At that time, you weren\u2019t allowed to dance in the circle or balcony levels, there were security people to make sure you stayed in your seat. I remember looking down to the ground floor and seeing people dancing in the aisles in these wild papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 masks: one guy had an over-sized pig\u2019s head mask. And men on stage in costumes and makeup. It was so utterly, fabulously other, a portal to this secret universe no-one had told us existed. A footnote to that: back in Howick, my friend Garry wrote to the mayor asking him to put up a statue to Eddie Rayner in the main street. I don\u2019t know if he ever got a reply. I think it\u2019s still a reasonable request. <\/p>\n I did think when the tour was announced, \u201cDo we need this?\u201d <\/p>\n Russell Brown<\/p>\n Baillie: You don\u2019t always discover a band in the order they deliver things or when they first deliver them. True Colours was a big album for anyone in their mid-teens like I was when it was released. But I found out about the arty early Split Enz through older guys at high school, one of whom had taught himself all of Eddie Rayner\u2019s piano parts on Second Thoughts. I still have the sheet music to My Mistake. It still taunts me. I didn\u2019t see Split Enz until the Time and Tide tour at Kensington Stadium in Whangarei where it was all very nautical and there was a sail backdrop and I was standing up front near Neil Finn who, despite him being dressed as a crew member of HMS Pinafore, looked very cool and confident. <\/p>\n A few months later, they headlined one of the nights at Sweetwaters and brought on, I think, bassist Mike Chunn, saxophonist Robert Gillies and drummer Paul Crowther, to play some of the early stuff. Which, looking back on it, was an indulgent move for a festival. When they played Charlie as one of the last songs, it was a moment. If there was one song I would have liked to hear this time, that wasn\u2019t played, it would be Charlie. <\/p>\n Graham Reid: I saw them an embarrassingly long time ago, maybe the very late 1970s. I\u2019d been a huge fan from the first time I heard Mental Notes (an album I used to challenge university music students to listen to in one sitting. They never did). For some reason I missed Second Thoughts and Dizrythmia but came back for Frenzy and True Colours and was a fan all over again. I\u2019d seen them at Sweetwaters in 1980 and then on that post-True Colours tour. I can\u2019t remember seeing them after that until now.<\/p>\n I was a little sceptical and baulked at the ticket prices but … on the night it played out like a great rock show by a band that was simultaneously enjoying a kind of homecoming and a farewell, which is why it soared in a way I didn\u2019t anticipate.<\/p>\n Graham Reid<\/p>\n Baillie: Actually, Graham, you and I were among the media who saw them at the Kohimarama Yacht Club when Holmes did a 30th anniversary special of their first gig in 2002. They played four songs for the cameras then a whole set. I\u2019ve now seen more Enz reunion shows than when they were a going concern. But this didn\u2019t feel like just another one. <\/p>\n Brown: Not gonna lie: I did think when the tour was announced, \u201cDo we need this?\u201d And yeah, it turned out, we did. This felt like something important for the Split Enz legacy, without feeling like just a revival show. They went some interesting places. They played like a band.<\/p>\n Cameron: I admit to having similar feelings. But now I feel like I\u2019ve seen a great moment in the Kiwi music story. <\/p>\n Reid: Like Russell Brown, I was a little sceptical and baulked at the ticket prices but on the night it played out like a great rock show by a band that was simultaneously enjoying a kind of homecoming (the city that made them) and a farewell, which is why it soared in a way I didn\u2019t anticipate. I was down on the floor and people were clearly into it \u2013 perhaps nostalgia for the songs but also they had preloaded a bit \u2013 and the whole place got up the minute Six Months in a Leaky Boat was played, a song which really taps that \u201crugged individual\u201d story we tell ourselves.<\/p>\n I thought the staging was superb \u2013 you can see where the dollars went \u2013 and the set list really surprised me: going right back to Mental Notes with Time for a Change and Spellbound was a rare treat.<\/p>\n God bless Elam: what a gift that place has been to our creative life, not just in the visual arts but as part of the brew that became Split Enz.<\/p>\n Kirsty Cameron<\/p>\n Baillie: I guess with the pieces the magazine has run about Split Enz\u2019s history, it was interesting to reflect on the geography. Split Enz was playing at Spark Arena, about a kilometre down the hill from where O\u2019Rorke Hall and the Elam School of Fine Arts were, both pivotal places for the band in the early days \u2026and 1km down the hill from the Chunn household in Parnell, too. On Saturday, Tim Finn talked about him and Noel Crombie having jobs at the Post Office, a building that is now the railway station and another brisk walk away. There were flats in Kohimarama and Mission Bay. From the stage banter we learnt that Eddie Rayner apparently worked in the sewers at that time when he wasn\u2019t playing keyboards in every Auckland band before he decided on the Enz. <\/p>\n Cameron: Weren\u2019t they great stories, anchoring us in place? I really enjoyed the banter: they seemed to be having a great time. And god bless Elam: what a gift that place has been to our creative life, not just in the visual arts but as part of the brew that became Split Enz.<\/p>\n Baillie: I guess the tour has also come in the wake of a fairly strenuous reissue campaign. There was the True Colours album going back to number one a few years back. More recently there have been the Mental Notes and Second Thoughts reissues and remixes helmed by Rayner. I wondered if they might do theatrical shows of just those first two albums but getting that version of the band back together is unlikely. This show had a couple of very early songs from the weird early years \u2013 Time for a Change, Spellbound and Matinee Idyll (129). That\u2019s more than they\u2019ve played on past reunion shows. What was your impression of your fellow punters?<\/p>\n Cameron: Multi-generational and surprisingly young, I think. Maybe there\u2019s an Enz for every era, and Neil probably pulls in Crowded House fans curious to see the origin story.<\/p>\n Brown: Things got a bit wild where we were, up in the gods. But you couldn\u2019t begrudge people a bit of excitement \u2013 these were thirtysomethings who\u2019d grown up with those songs and never heard them played live. They might have struggled a bit with Time for a Change, but that\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n Baillie: On the way in, I thought it had the desperately thirsty air of a winery tour out in the bar areas and the pubs surrounding the venue. Seemed like people who had paid what were some very high prices for the tickets were very determined to have a very good time. I see the demographics were much on the mind of other reviewers. On Stuff, reviewing duties went to life content director Ellen Read,<\/a> whose piece was headlined \u201cSplit Enz didn\u2019t just play their hits. They handed me back my teenage heart\u201d. Aww. She apparently had a very good time, such a good time she says she stopped taking notes and wrote \u201cso apologies to Enz pedants if the details become hazy.\u201d Which is possibly why she said Neil Finn said Matinee Idol [sic] was the song that persuaded him to join the band. No, that was Eddie Rayner. Neil Finn was persuaded to join the band by his older brother. Kind regards, a pedant. <\/p>\n The headline on the review in the NZ Herald, that well-known youth publication, was \u201cArt rock reckoning proves nostalgia isn\u2019t just for nana and grandad<\/a>.\u201d Reviewer Mitchell Hageman, once again roped to write about a concert by people three times his age, poor lad. He seemed very keen on a Las Vegas angle and wound up suggesting the band could play the Sphere there after The Eagles finish their residency. Which might be overestimating the Enz\u2019s American fanbase, just a little. He also noted \u201ca lag in pace during the slower songs\u201d which is remarkably observant, and that Crombie played the spoons \u201cwith such veracity\u201d \u2026 but what more can a poor boy do? <\/p>\n Cameron: The Herald headline was pissy \u2013 save the snark for the upcoming Englebert Humperdinck tour \u2013 and didn\u2019t reflect the tone of Mitchell\u2019s good and fair piece: I liked the idea of a Vegas residency. But then I\u2019d pay to go to \u201cAn Evening with Mr Noel Crombie\u201d in an underground venue somewhere. He\u2019s pure cabaret. <\/p>\n Baillie: Any moments that particularly stood out for you musically or visually? Anything you think didn\u2019t quite work?<\/p>\n Brown: Six Months in a Leaky Boat was the one the crowd really rose for \u2013 and they played it like a Springsteen anthem. I love that they\u2019ve also found ways to play those early songs \u2013 which don\u2019t necessarily fit easily into a modern set \u2013 essentially by playing them as if they\u2019re new songs they\u2019re still exploring. Time for a Change was magnificent, and they went full prog on it! (\u201cWe\u2019ve been accepted by the prog community, actually,\u201d said Tim at one point. \u201cWe\u2019re part of the family now.\u201d) Noel unleashing his inner Jimi Hendrix was great fun and Give It a Whirl sounded huge \u2013 I didn\u2019t want them to stop playing it.<\/p>\n The sounds of a full house doing the \u201cAotearoa\u201d line in Six Months was spine-tingling.<\/p>\n Kirsty Cameron<\/p>\n Reid: We have to concede that Tim\u2019s voice isn\u2019t what it used to be, but I thought Stuff and Nonsense was especially beautiful and moving (the kind of lyric he sort of grew into) and also, I Hope I Never. The latter is one of those songs that actually benefits from a cracked, emotionally broken delivery. In a night of standouts, those were the two for me, other than the extraordinary I See Red, where Eddie Rayner just pulled out his twisted magic on the keyboards.<\/p>\n Other moments that were uplifting: Time for a Change, and Neil sounding alarmingly like he was channelling Liam Gallagher for a while on Give It a Whirl.<\/p>\n For consideration as Most Valuable Player we should mention drummer Matt Eccles. He looked like the happiest drummer in Christendom most of the time, the boy who graduated from betchadupa with Neil\u2019s son Liam and was now in the Split Enz finishing school.<\/p>\n And Noel Crombie? That whacko metal guitar solo (followed by Hard Act to Follow on Sunday night!) and the work on the spoons aside, he was one to watch constantly. Every band needs a Noel Crombie. It was terrific to see all those images of his extraordinary designs for Enz suits given a special moment. It reminded you of the breadth of talent \u2013 literary, lyrical, art school, design etc \u2013 that Split Enz contained and could draw on.<\/p>\n With all that I didn\u2019t get the sense this was just another nostalgic jog around the block for them: they looked like they were having a great time and really pushing themselves into songs that went beyond a greatest hits routine. I enjoyed every minute, although often minute-by-minute for very different reasons: the elevating rock, the heartbreaking ballads, Neil\u2019s guitar playing, Eddie\u2019s keyboard work which seemed to run from church bells to classical figures then prog-rock wigouts. Tip o\u2019 the hat to bassist James Milne also. Big moment for him too.<\/p>\n A night to remember for the music, humour, clothes, and the breadth of Split Enz\u2019s catalogue of often extraordinary songs which don\u2019t follow that strait old line. <\/p>\n Baillie: Musically, I found Tim Finn\u2019s piano songs Time for a Change and Stuff and Nonsense really moving. To my mind, some of the songs on the early Enz albums can feel a bit odd when they are singled out and not heard as part of side one or side two. Spellbound was perhaps an example of that but those two songs, which are both bittersweet and anything but straight-forward pop ballads, left me quite wrung out. Also, it\u2019s funny how Six Months in a Leaky Boat has become something of a national shanty which we make kids sing in school. But live, with all its movements \u2013 it\u2019s kind of like the early progressive rock Enz, but more accessible \u2013 was remarkable. With that Eddie Rayner epic piano intro, which still reminds of the theme to The Onedin Line, and the outro, it was one the greatest songs of Saturday night. Neil Finn\u2019s guitar headed into the Neil Young stratosphere towards the end. Add the massed voices and raised phones of the audience, and it was fairly glorious \u2014 a moment that wasn\u2019t just about a song, but about what Split Enz meant to a lot of people.<\/p>\n Cameron: Where was Charlie? I guess the catalogue is so big hard decisions have to be made. Does it sound weird to say I like it when Tim goes full melancholy with songs like I Hope I Never? The parts where the audience joined also gave added emotional heft \u2013 the sounds of a full house doing the \u201cAotearoa\u201d line in Six Months was spine-tingling.<\/p>\n Brown: After that tight opening bracket where they reminded us that they were around at the same time as early Talking Heads, I figured when Dirty Creature started they\u2019d play it as a big funk monster, but it didn\u2019t quite get there on the Sunday night.<\/p>\n Baillie: The sound started out a bit tinny on Saturday night but opener Shark Attack is a pretty tinny sounding song. It soon got better. The combination of the mix and the camera work showed what a marvel Eddie Rayner has always been on the keyboards. He really is part octopus and one of the greats. With all the advances in modern sound technology, they still haven\u2019t figured a great way of miking up Noel\u2019s spoons, though he does move around a lot. It was a nice touch keeping his party piece right until the end. Talking of Crombie, and for the more fashion conscious among us, how about the clothes?<\/p>\n Cameron: I thought Neil\u2019s stripes were reminiscent of a school blazer, which is kind of meta given that even decades on, he still has \u201clittle brother\u201d status in the band. Which he does play to, very good naturedly. I loved his story about the hitch-hiking \u2013 at age 15 ffs \u2013 from Te Awamutu to Auckland for that Buck-a-Head concert. And a later crack about watching the band on the New Faces talent quest on TV \u201cin my shorty pyjamas\u201d. My husband is an older gentleman, and he was at the Buck-a-Head concert referred to; he recalls Neil coming out first and playing his ukulele. <\/p>\n Brown: I loved the tribute to Noel\u2019s wardrobe designs \u2013 it was a nice way to acknowledge an important part of their art through the years. Maybe there\u2019s also a note there about how textiles are an overlooked part of the culture and our mid-century poets would also be fabric printers. <\/p>\nKeyboardist and proud son of Howick Eddie Rayner on stage during the band’s Forever Enz reunion tour. Photo Tom Grut<\/p>\n
Neil and Tim Finn in step again during the Forever Enz tour. Photo Tom Grut<\/p>\n
The backdrop becomes a kaleidoscope of Noel Crombie costume designs during the Forever Enz tour, 2026\/ Photo Tom Grut<\/p>\n
Split Enz on stage during the band’s Forever ENZ reunion tour of NZ. Photo Tom Grut<\/p>\n
Noel Crombie’s past costumes become a backdrop to Split on Enz on stage during the Forever Enz tour. Photo Tom Grut<\/p>\n
Drummer Matt Eccles on stage during the Forever Enz tour, 2026\/ Photo Tom Grut<\/p>\n
Bassist James Milne, moonlighting from his singer-songwriter guise Lawrence Arabia on stage during the Forever Enz tour, 2026\/ Photo Tom Grut<\/p>\n
Noel Crombie unleashes the cutlery on stage during the Forever ENZ reunion tour of NZ. Photo Tom Grut<\/p>\n