Tim Finn brings The Lives and Times of Tim Finn tour to NZ this year

NZ Herald

24 May, 2023 11:50 PM3 mins to read

Tim Finn is bringing his tour, The Lives and Times of Tim Finn, to Australia and New Zealand. Photo / Karen Inderbitzen-Waller

Legendary Split Enz singer and songwriter Tim Finn is returning to perform in New Zealand for the first time in over a decade.

Finn, 70, is bringing his The Lives and Times of Tim Finn concert tour to Australia and New Zealand in September 2023, in celebration of his achievements in music over the years.

The singer/songwriter, who fronted Split Enz and performed in Crowded House with younger brother and fellow Enz member Neil Finn, is set to perform his biggest hits since 1977 as part of a wide-ranging line-up, including his solo material.

Tim Finn is set to tour New Zealand later this year. Photo / Supplied

After a decade-long foray into musical theatre and opera, Finn felt like “his time had come” to get a band together and tour.

“After spending 10 years writing songs for music theatre and developing a new opera, I played a one-off open air show for 2000 people in Manly, Australia last year and loved the way my live band was so tight and focused,” the 70-year-old said in a statement.

“Playing all the parts that belong on the recordings, the right sounds, the right grooves... it made me want to do it again. I crafted a chronological setlist that followed the 40 years. I chose songs that I can still fully inhabit, songs I never tire of singing. Now I want to take that show through Australia and NZ, going into old venues that are filled with ghosts of shows gone by.”

His work as a composer and lyricist for theatre includes the award-winning musical Ladies in Black, Ihitai ‘Avei’a - Star Navigator for the New Zealand Opera Company, and an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Come Rain Or Come Shine for the Melbourne Theatre Company.

And as much as he loved working in theatre, he admits that he missed playing for a live audience.

“Playing live is the link between a songwriter and his or her next album... It feeds into the writing. And it never gets old.”

Fans heading along to the shows in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland can expect to hear Crowded House hits Weather With You and Chocolate Cake, Split Enz’s I See Red, Six Months in a Leaky Boat, and Dirty Creature, and several of Finn’s solo hits, from Persuasion to Staring At The Embers and Fraction Too Much Friction.

Special guest Flip Grater will open the New Zealand shows, with Hayley Mary opening for Finn on the Australia dates.

General public tickets go on sale at 11am Monday, May 29.