All photos by Other Half who gleefully went out to play in the snow take photographs before he had had breakfast.

Neil Finn announces “Seven Worlds Collide, pt. 2″.

In 2001 Finn had members of Radiohead, the Smiths and Pearl Jam playing with him for a series of concerts in Auckland, New Zealand. This time around? Johnny Marr (The Smiths and, now, Modest Mouse), Phil Selway and Ed O’Brien (both Radiohead), Lisa Germano, Sebastian Steinberg (Soul Coughing) and Liam Finn (of Betchadupa, own solo career and Finn junior) join forces with four members of Wilco, Don McGlashan (of fab Kiwi legends The Mutton Birds) and, er, KT Tunstall. A record of original material with be produced by Jim Scott (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Wilco, Lucinda Williams, Foo Fighters and Johnny Cash).

And there is a NZ tour announced.

HOLY GUACAMOLE.

I started off with Wherever You Are, a solo offering from a 2000-2001 webcast series. Things went a bit hardcore with my favourite Finn song: Suffer Never with Johnny Marr (The Smiths), Sebastian Steinberg (Soul Coughing) and Ed O’Brien & Phil Selway (Radiohead) as backing band. It was followed by Fall At Your Feet (studio version) – the song that made me buy my first Finn album. Then.. oh, obscurity: Don McGlashan of Mutton Birds performing Anchor Me with Neil Finn as backing vocalist. Less obscure, but certainly obscure enough, Finn Brothers performing Only Talking Sense on BBC’s Later (I have an ace version of this song with Grant Lee Phillips doing harmonies, guh). And..

You get the picture.

And finally, “Distant Sun”. The perfect pop song. The song that launched a thousand friendships based upon a shared love of the line I don’t pretend to know what you want / But I offer love. The song that can still stop me in my tracks. This version was filmed at Crowded House’s farewell concert in Sydney, 1996: around 2.11 the song just begins to hit me hard and I’m lost by the 2.35 mark. By the time the ad-libbing begins, I’m either snivelling into my tea, bobbing my head or dancing about (usually all three). It’s not a perfect version but it’s such a charged rendition.

Is it my favourite Finn song? No, as I said above, that honour goes to the deliciously dark “Suffer Never”. Is it my favourite Crowded House song? Maybe, although I could say the same of In The Lowlands, Nails In My Feet (one of the rare studio recordings that’s better than any live version) or Whispers and Moans. And then there are Four Seasons In One Day and Don’t Dream It’s Over, both classics in their own right. Don’t get me started on pre-CH Finn songs or Tim Finn’s solo stuff (Persuasion, omg! Twinkle! Why isn’t there a YouTube version of the amazing Roadtrip?!).

But Distant Sun is my lodestone. It’s my song. *reloads*