Live Appearances

London, 6 February 2002
Southern Cross Magazine Interview

Triple the Value

Tim Finn, Bic Runga and Dave Dobbyn hit town for their huge Waitangi Day concert this week. Kye Northover caught up with Tim for a chat about life in a threesome and why it’s better than ever to be a Kiwi.

Celebrating your country’s national day when you’re on the other side of the world is often something of a makeshift affair, but New Zealanders in London can celebrate this week’s Waitangi Day in true Kiwi style.

Three of New Zealand’s biggest musical stars will be in London for an exclusive Waitangi Day concert at Brixton Academy.

Kiwi legends Tim Finn and Dave Dobbyn are teaming up with the country’s newest star Bic Runga — whose album Drive is the biggest-selling album in New Zealand ever by a Kiwi — to help Kiwis celebrate with some home-grown tunes.

The trio first teamed up last year for a small-scale tour of New Zealand, and while they still performed in their own unique styles, they wanted to create a casual atmosphere on stage.

In London, Finn, Runga and Dobbyn will appear on stage together for the duration of the two-hour show, which will be presented in two halves. The singers will perform together and solo, and the music will vary from acoustic to electric and at times with a band.

For Tim, who returned home to live in New Zealand two years ago with his wife and son, the tour was a part of a return to his roots.

“I’d been doing far more touring in NZ in the last year than I have in the last 25 years, really,” he explains.

“I’ve really been enjoying playing at the little places that we never used to go to. We always used to do what everybody does — Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin — and then off we’d go again. It’s really great to tap into the smaller places.”

Having enjoyed playing to more intimate audiences, Tim says he jumped at the idea of touring with Bic and Dave when a promoter friend suggested it. “I’d not worked with Dave in this way — we’d merged on a couple of projects but we’d never toured together before, so that was all new. It was a much bigger concept than I’d thought about before, but it was immediately intriguing.

“Bic is obviously known and loved in NZ so it wasn’t hard to find her, but it was just the idea of combining the three of us that was so unique.”

While Tim, Bic and Dave are all loved as individual artists in their home country, Tim says he didn’t expect the tour to be met with such success.

“It was a big tour, we played to a lot of people and it sold out everywhere. We did four shows at a theatre in Auckland that seats 4000, and we couldn’t believe it,” he says.

“It was great on two levels. One was that we did go to all these smaller places and also, because we were touring for the sake of touring, not to promote an album. It was just a tour purely to celebrate the coming together of three songwriters playing a whole bunch of New Zealand songs. People came out in their droves to hear them and there was a sort of purity about it in a way.

“I get sick of the whole touring to promote your album cycle — everybody does it, you have to do it to some extent, but it’s good to try and break out of it,” he says.

For the London Waitangi Day concert, fans who haven’t seen the trio perform together are in for a treat. “It’s a great way of performing,” Tim says. “We’re on stage all the time, so one or the three of us is playing. Bic sometimes plays the drums, she plays well — she’s very musical. She’s only small, but she can belt it out. Dave and Bic do a duet together, Beside You, one of Dave’s songs, which is beautiful. “There are some moments where it becomes very intimate and acoustic-flavoured, but most of it is more like all in — lots of harmonies all night.

“We have a bass, drums and guitar, but the three of us play a lot on different songs as well. We try and break down a lot of the structures people are used to on stage.”

And if you’re lucky, you might even be able to join the famous Kiwis on stage for a beer. “We try to keep it really informal and loose. There’s a bar on stage, so if you’re not doing too much for one song you can wander over and have a drink,” says Tim. “Sometimes we get audience members up on stage to sit on one of our couches and have a drink ... It’s pretty loose.”

Tim, who has been performing for 30 years this year, says he has mellowed somewhat, and he attributes a lot of this to having moved back to New Zealand. “I’ve been away for 25 years, and that’s a long time. But it’s so good to be back,” he says.

“It was the right time. I think it’s all about timing and it just felt right. It’s been very inspirational actually — I think it’s a very exciting, interesting time to be in New Zealand right now.

“I think socially and culturally there’s a lot of interesting work being done. If you read the papers and stick with what the mainstream media are telling you, then, it’s the same old story ... but to me there’s a lot more interesting things going on, where people are very sure of where they’re going, very sure of what they want to do.”

While Waitangi Day is somewhat controversial, Tim believes that it’s still a time for New Zealanders to celebrate, and is optimistic that his country is starting to look forward.

“It has very negative connotations for Maori people, the treaty has been broken so many times, so it’s the day when commonly, insults are exchanged a lot,” he says.

“But we still persevere and try and celebrate it. I think some Maori people are now moving forward.

“We have a Maori group, Ngati Ranana Performing Arts Group, who are going to get up and do a traditional welcome, and it will all be done very correctly and tastefully — we want to be inclusive, naturally,” he says.

“Because it’s so mixed and controversial, it’s hard to know whether to celebrate it or to mourn, really. I think, though, for ex-pats, for New Zealanders in London, it’s an excuse for a great party, regardless of what it’s all about.”

Tim Finn, Dave Dobbyn and Bic Runga perform on Wednesday, February 6 at Brixton Academy, SW9. The show is sold out, but TNT and 1st Contact have two pairs of VIP tickets to the concert to give away. They include reserved seating, an invitation to the after-show party, free champagne, beer and food. Call 0901-388 0014 by midnight Tuesday.

Original article: http://www.southerncross.co.uk/uk/tntmagazine/#feature2

Note: The original link is no longer available as at June 2002