Hot start to beginning of the Enz

Photo / Paul Estcourt, Picture research / Chris Marriner

Waihi was hosting what was to be New Zealand's largest music festival, Nambassa, and the Waimata Hall was used in the build-up as a rehearsal venue.

But on the night of January 24 the hall burned to the ground. This picture was taken as Malcolm Green (left), Tim Finn and Nigel Griggs of Split Enz picked through the ash the morning after.

Tim Finn - now the grand old man of New Zealand pop - was aged only 26 but already had six years with the Enz under his belt.

His brother Neil Finn, and fellow band members Eddie Rayner and Noel Crombie, are not pictured.

Drummer Malcolm Green, who left Enz in 1981, says they had spent the previous day practising at the venue.

"We'd heard fire engines that night, but didn't think anything of it," he says.

When they arrived in the morning the band were in shock. "We were pretty gobsmacked," says Green.

More than $30,000 of musical equipment was destroyed and bassist Nigel Griggs lost the guitar he'd been using for the past 15 years.

"The only thing standing from the fire was my drum stool - it wasn't too badly off, actually, if a little bit warped," says Green.

All things considered, though, Split Enz got off lightly - it was the Nambassa headliners that got really burnt. "It was a bit of a blessing for us, because we didn't bring down a lot of our own gear," says Green.

Most of the charred musical equipment belonged to the Little River Band.

Photographer Paul Estcourt, who still works at the NZ Herald, remembers taking the photo but has a better memory of what followed.

"It was at the start of their career and they weren't earning a hell of a lot of money at that point," says Estcourt of the ban members.

Split Enz were broke and lacking the equipment necessary to play at the festival that 60,000 concert-goers would attend in just a few days, so Estcourt rode to the rescue: "After taking that photo I actually drove them back to Auckland in my car to get some more gear."