Crowded House, Glasgow review: 'gorgeous, lyrically evocative classics'

“He’s just turned up in downtown Glasgow,” deadpanned Neil Finn to the fan in the front row who kept shouting “There Goes God” (a song request, not a statement). “It's official, it’s in The Scotsman.” Cheers for the vote of confidence Neil - you’ll read about it here first if it happens.

In the meantime, the only divine occurrences happening on the Clyde involved Finn’s long-revered group and a huge army of devoted fans, even though the all-seated atmosphere kept things low-key. The group’s two remaining founder members, Finn and bassist Nick Seymour, have a cracklingly entertaining comic dynamic, which, when they weren’t improvising very catchy songs about their crew, extended to sarcastically shushing the not-exactly-raucous crowd.

If you write mellow, contemplative ballads, mind you, that’s the spirit in which an audience will tend to receive them. The crowd may not have been on their feet, but the hit rate of gorgeous, lyrically evocative classics was high throughout, from the opening Weather With You (expending their most well-known song at the start: always a bold move) through Fall at Your Feet, Don’t Dream It’s Over and Four Seasons in One Day.

There were also less well-known entries from the Crowded House catalogue, including World Where You Live, When You Come, Private Universe and the swirling, electronic Sister Madly, and newer songs from a productive recent period, which has seen two albums released in three years. These included the psychedelic To the Island from 2021’s Dreamers Are Waiting and the cheerful Oh Hi from this year’s Gravity Stairs, their complex arrangements played by the band which recorded them (Crowded House now consists of Finn, Seymour, longtime producer Mitchell Froom’s sons Liam and Elroy).

At last, a powerful triptych of Something So Strong, Locked Out and It’s Only Natural near the end dragged dancers to their feet, but not before Finn caved and gave the person in the front row an unplanned acoustic version of There Goes God. It was a hugely crowd-pleasing show, albeit in the most understated way.