Not Quite the End

When Tim Finn and Split Enz supported Skyhooks and AC/DC at Sydney’s Festival Hall in 1975, they were booed at by teenager Magda Szubanski. “Years later, Magda admitted that she was booing us — mainly so she wouldn’t betray her Sharpie mates,” Finn says. “But she was secretly loving us. That’s a very Split Enz story: people who loved us but didn’t want to show it.” These days, Finn’s fans are much less abashed in their enthusiasm. On Wednesday, he performed to a sold-out crowd at the Northcote Social Club, playing Split Enz and Crowded House classics and a few songs from his latest album, The Conversation. Finn wrote the music for the Matt Cameron play Poor Boy, now showing at the Melbourne Theatre Company, and will finish the rock musical January that he began co-writing with Australian poet Dorothy Porter. Split Enz will perform at the Sound Relief bushfire benefit concert at the MCG on March 14.