Split Enz – Forever Enz Tour 2026

Split Enz, dressed in Noel Crombie-designed suits, walked onto the stage to instrumental The Choral Sea and the excitement amongst the 4000 capacity crowd was palpable. When they exploded into Shark Attack, with stunning graphics on the main backdrop screen, we knew we were in for something special. The side screens, showing close-ups of the musicians, flanked the main backdrop screen and fully engaged our senses and attention – an immersive experience.

Then there was the music: all the expected hits such as History Never Repeats, Poor Boy, Dirty Creature, Message to My Girl, and more, together with some surprises from their earliest albums. Before Time for a Change, Tim Finn mentioned an early tour with John Mayall which he called “an unlikely pairing”. It was on that tour, at Ziggy’s nightclub in Wellington, that Crombie first played the spoons.

Across the big screen, Eddie Rayner’s instrumental Double Happy featured a dazzling visual history of the band’s previous costumes. Although the core of this band have been together almost 50 years, with the current line-up featuring James Milne (bass) and Matt Eccles (drums) there was a vitality and freshness to their songs. Introducing Matinee Idyll (129) featuring Neil Finn on mandolin, Tim mentioned that “mandolin was a big part of our sound back in the day. We did a TV appearance on New Faces which was way before Idol, The X Factor, this that and the other”. 

By Six Months in a Leaky Boat, the crowd were dancing in their seats and spilling into the aisles and, with encouragement from Tim, sang the ending a cappella. I Got You followed, with the crowd singing at full volume. This was a party! A blistering I See Red finished the set, but there were encores to come – Spellbound followed by Tim singing the gorgeous I Hope I Never. Strait Old Line had Crombie starting on drums and ending up on spoons to end the concert on a high. This was entertainment and musicianship at its best.