Last Sunday I got to be part of a huge, raucous,  and appreciative crowd at Auckland’s Spark Arena to see and hear Crowded House. This isn’t a review of their music, their talent, their endurance, their achievements, or their artistry. It’s a short and heartfelt gratitude piece that I could even be amongst thousands of other people at a venue, seeing and hearing fantastic music.

I could ramble on for ages about how much Crowded House’s songs have been a part of the fabric of mine and my children’s lives over the past three and a half decades. I could wax lyrical on how unique the Finn family is in the annals of Kiwi music history – through two generations of brothers, sons, uncles and spouses. I could analyse Neil Finn’s lyrics that still leave me in a state of awe – like really, how do you even come up with the line, “as I touch your slow turning pain”? I could think aloud that there are very few bands who can out Beatles the Beatles, but Four Seasons in One Day” does it effortlessly and timelessly.

I’ll leave all of that aside, after all, others have done a far better job of reviewing the band’s performances throughout the country over the past few weeks.

I’m just grateful that I got to sing along, loudly and occasionally badly to a swathe of fantastic tunes with thousands of other New Zealanders who were all seemingly in the same frame of mind. Music and performances in general are just so essential and we have been deprived of them over the past 12 months, so seeing a mainly homegrown, world class band in all of their glory was spell binding. From the opening bars of Mean to Me to the anthemic and joyous Better Be Home Soon as the closing song, the night was a reminder and a teaser, a reflection and a promise of what is to come. It was a blast.