Ok, hands up who wants to hear about the show last night? Ok, great, you guys can read on. Everyone else -- I fear I will blather on. And on. And on. So, you know, I won't take offense if you don't want to read said blathering. I know you aren't all Neil Finn and Crowded House fans. I mean, you should be. I think so. I'll convert you yet. When you least expect it...

I've been trying to think of a way to synopsize (is that even a word?) the show in a nice, blog-length package, and I don't know how well I'll do with it. Here goes...

For those of you who have been reading my blog this week, you are fully aware of a) how utterly cool Mike is, and b) that I got to see Crowded House at a very special, private show LAST NIGHT because Mike is so cool. We actually tried to get tickets when we got the email newsletter about the show, but neither of us scored them. I had high hopes, but it didn't work out. I'd resigned myself, quite unhappily, to not going. Then my wonderful husband tells me on the evening of our anniversary that he got us on the list via the publicist (who is a friend of ours, so why I didn't think of this sooner is completely beyond me). Holy crap, Batman! I think I was alternating between disbelief and euphoria for the 24 hours before the show. By mid-afternoon, I had excitement butterflies in my stomach.

The show, which was being filmed for something for the Ovation channel (hello, Comcast, I don't think I have that channel and I NEED it before this airs, thanks!), was held at the Grand Masons Lodge on W. 23rd Street. The actual room was quite ornate and pretty, and because we got there early and waited in line for the doors to open, we got to stand right up front (two-to-three people from the front -- depending on the ebb and flow of the audience around us). The band played for 2 hours and 15 minutes-ish... maybe a little bit more... and the crowd was totally into it. It was especially great to see the wonderful responses some of the new songs got. I always find it sort of sad when I go to a show and new stuff just falls kind of flat for whoever is playing.

They played a lot of songs from the new album, "Time On Earth," which just came out July 10th. Like the fan that I am, I sang along to every song. On the several occasions that Neil encouraged the audience to sing, I got to practice the harmonies I've completely perfected in the privacy of my car (yes, I car sing... loudly... and I like to sing the harmony line a lot of the time, instead of the main melody line... and I don't always do it well, especially if it's music I don't know super well... but I have Crowded House stuff down, man!). I think the audience actually blew the band away with the multi-part harmonies we (the audience) did on "Fall At Your Feet." It gave me goosebumps.

I think I picked the perfect spot to stand. Or perhaps the fact that I'm a 6'2" tall chick who was wearing a bright red shirt and standing 8-10 feet away factored into it, but I got to exchange quite a lot of meaningful eye contact (as Cathy quoted me on her blog today) with Neil. Even Mike commented on him looking at me (so I wasn't imagining it after all).

The show was complete with all of the jocularity (ah, I can't believe I got to work that word into a blog post -- go me!) you'd expect at a Crowded House show, songs made up on the spot (including an entire song about the room the show was in with a chorus along the lines of "the room is great now"). Lots of audience participation. Lots of "wow, I can't believe I'm here moments." So I was trying so hard not to look like it, but inside, I was absolutely freaking out, and it was like I might as well have been on stage with them last night. I felt like I was out of my body and up on stage with them. Like the music was just connecting all of us into one big heap of cosmic togetherness. Yeah, it was one of those magic connection shows. LOVE when that happens. It doesn’t happen often, but it did last night.

If you'd like to see Mike's review of the show, it's here. Leave him a comment and say hi if you go read it! And I'll leave you with some goodies from the show. I got the set list that was taped to Neil's piano (and I must say they ended up not sticking to the order listed here -- it got shuffled a good bit during the latter portion of the show and things were added, including an impromptu cover of the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows"):

And I took a slew of photos, of which only a handful turned out decently enough to post here. Not too bad for cell phone photos though! (And you can see how close I really was!)