Finn Brothers, Missy Higgins at the St James

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

It has become an Auckland institution seeing one or more of the Finn brothers at the St James. Not an annual event but regular enough that it has its own expectations, rules and rituals.

Catch it on the first night of the season and usually you'll see the extended Finn clan - with proud father Dick at its centre - in a row of their own in the mezzanine.

Meanwhile, the brothers will try and keep the faithful happy with a set mixing their contributions to the Great New Zealand Songbook with fresher material that is ostensibly the reason for the show.

In this case that's second all-sibling album Everyone Is Here, which has given them their biggest domestic hit for some time, local fans warming to the plural Finns more than the solo efforts of the post-Crowded House years.

Like the new album, Saturday night's show was a big production number. The giant creatures-of-the-deep-like chandeliers from the workshop of Neil's wife Sharon were certainly flash.

But so were the arrangements made possible by the Finns' three American backers - brothers guitarist-keyboardist Paul and drummer Jeremy Stacey, as well as bassist Tim Smith. Former Enz/Crowded House keyboardist Eddie Rayner was also roped in to revive his inimitable role on ancient tunes such as Bold as Brass.

That full-bodied approach didn't allow for much sense of spontaneity or intimacy. And it must be said that after hearing it live, Homesick from the new album is the one track that deserves to be deported.

But as for the rest of it, well, y'know, the usual magic.

Especially magical were the fraternally framed new songs of Disembodied Voices and Life Between Us, the swirling guitar breezes of Anything Can Happen, and the stacked-harmony Nothing Wrong With You during the first encore.

Among the songs of a certain age, Four Seasons in One Day retained its lovely lilt, complete with audience harmonies, while I Got You rocked complete with twin lead-guitar lines, which was very Thin Lizzy. But it came back to earth at the finish with the hymnal A Gentle Hum, the pretty closing track of the new album.

Yes, another night at the St James with the Finns, an institution maybe, but no sign of crumbling.

In support Aussie singer-songwriter Missy Higgins proved why she's getting the sort of responses across the Tasman that Brooke Fraser is here, with a short but gutsy solo set, accompanying herself on guitar and piano, of songs delivered with an elegant line in heartbreak balladry.