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	THE FINN BROTHERS CROWDED HOUSE PARTY

The most telling moment at the Finn Brothers show a week ago Wednesday at the Somerville Theatre came during the encore, when the brothers launched into a Neil song from the first Crowded House album, "Don’t Dream It’s Over." It’s the only major American hit either brother has ever had, and for a mainstream audience, it’s one of the more fondly remembered pop ballads from the late ’80s. But from this audience, a sold-out crowd that cheered the first notes of every obscure album track, it got no reaction whatsoever.

As far as Australia and their native New Zealand are concerned, the brothers have been pop stars for decades, since younger brother Neil joined Tim Finn’s hitmaking band Split Enz in 1979. (Tim later returned the favor and joined Neil in Crowded House.) Yet their reputation rests not on a handful of singles but on a collective catalogue built on equal parts deep thoughts and killer hooks. True, the brothers’ solo albums have been a bit spotty in the 10 years since Crowded House’s demise. But with a creative comeback in last year’s duo album Everyone Is Here (Nettwerk) and a long catalogue to pick from, there was a real embarrassment of great material on display.

It proved to be a much different show from the one the brothers played at the FleetBoston Pavilion last summer. At the time, they had a full band and were featuring the just-released duo album. Last week, they were back to basics, just Tim Smith joining on bass and the Finns doing the rest, Neil on lead guitar and electric piano, Tim strumming acoustic and playing bass drum as well as a snare drum with his feet. And it amounted to a rare greatest-hits set, with many Enz and House numbers that hadn’t been played in years. In a real shocker for the faithful, they even dug up a Split Enz song ("Charley") from their Roxy Music–influenced pre-Neil days. And Neil sang the later Enz song "Message to My Girl," possibly the most gorgeous tune he’s written.

One thing hasn’t changed: both brothers’ songs get their kick from the dark undertone beneath their Beatles-inspired surface. That was evident as far back as Split Enz’ "I Got You" (played as an encore at the Somerville), which slips the chorus "I don’t know why sometimes I get frightened" into an otherwise giddy love song. The best of the new songs, "All the Colors," did the opposite: dealing with the sobering topic of their mother’s death, it sounded hopeful without pulling any cheap sentiment.

As in Crowded House days, there was a lot of goofy repartee that managed not to deflate the seriousness of the songs. And though Neil and Tim have not harmonized often in the past (even when in the same band, they tended to split lead vocals), the vocal blend last week proved that they were born to do so.