Tim Finn is coming back to Cairns with a brilliant new album and his whole back catalogue. He's also bringing his dance moves, writes Andree Stephens

It was the jerky, twitching dance that one most remembers – the song? The Split Enz classic, I See Red. Tim Finn outdid himself as the frontman of that eccentric band in his wacky suit with the crazed hair. Oh, and the tune wasn’t bad either.

Talk to him these days and he’ll confess his moments of choreographic madness are pretty much banned in the Finn household.

“My wife said if I do the song I just have to stand there. ‘Don’t move’,” he says with a laugh. “But I just can’t! I get into a lather – it just takes over.”

At a recent stadium gig in New Zealand (that World Cup thing of late), he performed in front of a massive crowd, and again, his wife begged him to stay still.

A kind of ‘think of the children’ moment?

“Exactly!”

But if the Cairns fans play their cards right at Tanks this month, he might just let loose again.

It has only been a year since Tim Finn was up in the tropics performing with his band, so why now?

“It was a no-brainer,” he said. “We wanted to get on the road again, and last time it was such a good night, we sold out. Tanks is such a good venue. It holds a decent amount of people but it still has that feeling of intimacy.”

The show, on November 26, coincides with the release of his latest album, The View Is Worth The Climb, which he intends to throw into the huge mix that is his back story.

“Yes, we’ll be playing plenty of new and old,” he says. “We have a lot of songs. We play the whole span of my career, from early Split Enz through my Crowded House time and onwards.

“This gives people a broader picture of the artist. They come to see me now and suddenly realise what the back story is, which then helps merge my new with old.”

And what a tale it is.

From the moment the New Zealand band Split Enz hit Australian shores in the mid-’70s, the scene was set. Award-winning albums, frenetic concerts and a style like no other of the time – merging art rock, vaudeville, swing, punk, glam rock and pop.

“Yes, we took it as far as anyone ever has,” he chuckles. “Noel Crombie, at that point an art school student, made the costumes, and even cut our hair. We were like a living organic sculpture. But it worked, it fitted the music.”

Tim’s first foray into solo work leapt out with the quirky, delightful Fraction Too Much Friction, a 1983 single that also signalled a shift for the Enz frontman.

“That was a Split Enz song but it didn’t work with the band. I had released some solo work, and found the right way to present it. But it wasn’t the defining change that took me into my solo career. I was still with the band but I felt like I was having an affair in some way…”

He continued to release solo works but the defining moment was with the release of Persuasion in the early 1990s, which he says was when he knew his direction and future were now “taken out” of the Split Enz era.

“Persuasion was when I developed as a solo singer/songwriter, it felt like the new start I needed.”

Over the years, he has performed with his brother Neil in Crowded House and as The Finn Brothers (both Finns received OBEs in New Zealand for their contribution to music), he has collaborated with the likes of Peter Gabriel, has had songs on film soundtracks including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and, in a particular industry accolade, the Finn music is now being performed in They Will Have Their Way – a series of concerts in tribute to their work by some of the most outstanding musicians in the country.

But for Tim, his greatest moment is now.

Married with an eight-year-old and a 13-year-old, his world is complete.

“I started a bit late but I was waiting for the right person. And I got it right. This life … kids are challenging and I relish it,” he says. “You never stop learning about yourself, and they (children) are like a mirror – they are very grounding.”
His wife, television presenter Marie Azcona, formerly of MTV and TVNZ One’s Music Week, is “a great talent, a great collaborator and we have the same taste in music”.

“You know, after years of wandering, and some tumultuous times, I have found my place, and I am also more productive as a songwriter.”

While the family won’t be up in Cairns this time, he and Marie will be heading to the Falls Festival in January and “parking the kids with the grandparents”.

So here at the Tanks, there’ll be no one whispering little cautions about THAT dance.

“It’s going to be a very comprehensive journey,” he says, laughter threading through the conversation. “Oh, we’ll mic it up, it’s going to be a great night.

“I will be seeing red, but I’ll expect you (the audience) to do the same. I’ll be watching!”

>>Tim Finn performs at Tanks Arts Centre on November 26. Tickets $40-45 from www.ticketlink.com.au or 1300 855 835.

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