Stuff and nonsense

Many, many, many moons ago I was a 13 years old and obsessed with a band called Split Enz.

They were from New Zealand and wore strange costumes and face paint and had weird hairdos. They’d also just had their first major hit – ‘I Got You’. (I am including all these details because my 65-year-old neighbour had absolutely no idea who they were when we were chatting over the wekeend.)

Vibrating with adolescent hormones, I fell swooningly in love with the band’s lead singer, Neil Finn. My friend had a massive crush on his band mate and brother Tim. We would lie on her bed after school concocting imaginary tales about them meeting and falling madly in love with us.

My fondness for Neil has evolved from wild infatuation to intense admiration over the years and I’ve seen him perform countless times in various bands.

As for Tim, while I always loved his angelic voice and harmonies with Neil, I’d never seen him solo. I decided to book two tickets to see him perform at Sydney Opera House on Sunday night.

DD was supposed to go with me, but he took a spur-of-the-moment trip to Europe so I suddenly had a ticket to spare.

The first person who sprang to mind for the spare ticket was my high school friend. We hadn’t spoken for more than five years, but I sent her a message on Facebook asking if she would like to join me.

She seemed startled by the invitation – I don’t think Split Enz has stayed as close to her heart as they have to mine. She said she’d check if she was free, but she has a lot going on and forgot to get back to me until 10pm on Friday night. She apologised and said she wasn’t available.

Who you gonna call? Yep, my sister came to the rescue again. She was delighted to join me and said she loved Tim Finn. I thought she was just being nice, but I was startled to discover she knew all the words to all his songs. When I asked how, she pointed out I that had made her listen to Split Enz songs from the age of 11 – I played the albums over and over while we did the dishes together each night.

It was such a lovely concert and brought back so many memories.

The play list was chronological and my favourite bits were the early Split Enz stuff, such as ‘My Mistake’ and ‘I See Red’ and a beautiful ballad I’d forgotten about called ‘Stuff and Nonsense’, which made me tear up because it’s so beautiful.

I also enjoyed some of the Woodface album songs he played that he’d written with Neil, including Chocolate Cake and Weather With You.

“You’ve still got it, Tim!” someone shouted halfway through the gig.

Tim was still looking pretty fantastic up on stage.

You know you’re getting long in the tooth when you gaze at a performer and think: “That’s a mighty fine looking 71-year-old rooster up there.”

Tim also had his daughter with him on stage, Elliott Finn, who is 20 and sings just as angelically as her father. Aren’t genetics an amazing thing?

My sister and I both loved the concert and parted outside to head home: she was catching a cab and I was catching the bus … until I realised that I didn’t have any money or a credit card. I’d left it all in my beach bag earlier in the day.

Ooooops.

I also don’t have the Uber app … and that’s how I found myself walking home from the Sydney Opera House.

The short story is: it was a looooooooooong way.

I finally arrived home way after midnight and realised I’d left DD’s car out the front in a morning clearway. I moved it, went upstairs and discovered the dogs hadn’t been able to hold on – there were puddles of wee everywhere.

Sigh. I mopped that up and took them for a walk.

It was after 1am when I finally crashed in bed … and then I was woke at 5am because I’d forgotten to shut the blinds (my bedroom faces east) and had also forgotten to shut the window (there is a lot of traffic noise outside my apartment block).

So yesterday passed in a haze of exhaustion.

Read a review of Tim’s concert here as I’m still feeling too tired to do it justice!

And watch one of my all-time favourite Split Enz songs below.

Song of the day: Split Enz “Stuff and Nonsense”