The Tony Mackness Web Site

Tim Finn

Tim was a founder member of the Avante Garde New Zealand band "Split Enz" formed in 1973 .
He was the main writing force of the band who produced well over a dozen albums between 1975 and 1984.
By the time their last album "See y'a round" was released Tim had already left to pursue his solo career.
The band went through many personnel changes over the years, the most important one being in 1977 when the
younger Finn brother, Neil joined, and In 1984 for the farewell album, drummer Paul Hester became the newest recruit.
Tragically on the 26th March 2005 Hester hung himself.

Split Enz ticket 1980

Birmingham Odeon no longer a live
music venue.

The Odeon used to be one of the main live music venues in the Midlands. Established bands played the Odeon, up and coming band usually played the smaller Birmingham Town Hall.

One of my early gigs and the Town Hall was Nils Lofgren, supported by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. What a double bill that was.

Split Enz promo photo for the
"See ya Round"
album.

This was their first album without Tim



After the bands demise Neil Finn and Paul Hester were joined by Nick Seymour to form Crowded House.
They were very successful, but it took the album "Woodface" to really put them on the map. Woodface started
life as a Finn brothers project..... When Crowded House presented the demo's to their record company,
Capitol, for their third album, they were rejected. It was then decided to use the Finn demos and Tim was
invited to be the fourth member of Crowded House. The album spawned hits such as "Weather With You",
"Four seasons in one day", "It's only Natural" and "Chocolate Cake". However the success would not
last, and after only a couple of gigs of the UK tour Tim left the band. Tim and Neil both had big ego's and the
band was Neil's, not Tim's. Tim couldn't carry on playing second fiddle, he was a front man, and once again
he was on his own.

The brother's did finally do an album together in 1995, simply titled "Finn", and the follow up "Everyone is Here"
was released in 2004.
They did a UK tour during October and November 2004 to promote the album, taking in Wolverhampton Civic.
As well as playing many songs from the new album, they thrilled the audience by doing some classic
Split Enz songs such as I Got You, Poor Boy, Message to my girl, Stuff and nonsense and I see red.
Crowded House songs, It's Only natural, Weather with you, Four seasons in one day and Into temptation
also featured. There were no songs from their solo albums, but I am told that at one gig Tim did do "Persuasion"

Tim And Neil Finn Wolverhampton Civic 25.10.2004


Flyer for the "Tim Finn" album	Flyer for the "Imaginary Kingdom" album

Discography

Escapade
Epic 1984

Big Canoe
Virgin 1986

Tim Finn
Capitol 1989

Before and After
Capitol 1993

Live at The Borderline
Limited Edition Promo Only
Capitol 1993

Finn Tim Finn and Neil Finn
Parlophone 1995

ALT
Altitude
Tim Finn, Andy White and Liam O'Maonlai
Parlophone 1995

Steel City
Columbia 1998

Say It Is So
Periscope / Sonny's Pop 1999

Together in concert - Live
Tim Finn, Bic Runga and Dave Dobbyn
(CRS Records / Epic 2000)

Talking With The Gods
(Periscope / Sonny's Pop 2001)

Everyone Is Here The Finn Brothers
(Parlophone 2004)

Imaginary Kingdom
(Parlophone 2006)

Rarities / Demos / Live Performances Vol 1
2008
Includes hidden track - Jingle from the movie "Coca Cola Kid"

The Conversation (Capitol 2008)

The View Is Worth The Climb (ABC Music / Universal 2011)

The Conversation sees Tim reunited with violinist Miles Golding and keyboard player Eddie Rayner, who were both original members of
Split Enz.

Tims voice is not so strong
as it used to be but he
still comes comes up with terrific tunes and lyrics.