You don't play to 100,000 people at the foot of the most famous building in the country simply for being popular. Popular is getting to be a judge on a TV talent show; very popular might see you singing at the footy grand final.
Pulling a grand final-size crowd to the Sydney Opera House only happens when you're so loved you're taken to a nation's Ken Done jumper-covered breast and squeezed so tight your New Zealand accent disappears.
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Crowded House return to Sydney
Much loved rock band Crowded House confirm two concerts in November, twenty years after the group's farewell gig in 1996.
Crowded House's farewell to the world concert in 1996, which is about to be replicated across four nights next week at the same spot on Sydney Harbour, was a full stop and an exclamation mark on a musical love letter.
It ended that version of the group, which would reform a decade later without drummer and livewire Paul Hester. The size and emotional outpouring that warm night also confirmed this band had a special place in Australian life. It was formalised in Los Angeles with two Melburnians in Hester and Nick Seymour, and a chap from Te Awamutu on New Zealand's North Island named Neil Finn.
![Crowded House renew a 30-year love affair with Australia this month: from left, Matthew Sherrod, Mark Hart, Neil Finn ...](/web/20161217235016im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/h/h/v/2/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsrpc3.png/1479471008898.jpg)
As Paul Dempsey of another veteran band, Something For Kate, once said of Crowded House: "Their songs have become folk tunes in the truest sense of that word. They kind of embody a tradition for a couple of generations of people."
The facts said as much with nearly 2 million albums sold here, about half of them for the greatest hits set, Recurring Dream; five albums at No.1, beginning with the self-titled debut in 1986; many ARIA Awards, including best new artist and Don't Dream It's Over as song of the year at the first ARIA Awards in 1987; and 16 songs in the top 50 singles charts.
But the facts don't tell you why this was true, why being inducted into the hall of fame at next week's ARIA Awards, the night before the first of the concerts, is the least controversial act of nationalism in 2016.
They don't explain how the mix of melancholy and joie de vivre, of tenderness and comedy – a vital element in the chemistry of all three original members – seemed to fit the Australian psyche. And the local weather: the song Four Seasons In One Day remains the quintessential Melbourne forecast, but the rest of the country feels its truth about life in general just the same.
They don't tell you how men who might eschew emotion day-to-day could tear-up when hearing Don't Dream It's Over and Better Be Home Soon, and how women who might mock clumsily emotional men were moved by Private Universe and Love You Til The Day I Die coming from the mouths, or at least the stereo speakers, of such men.
Or how those who hadn't ever experienced Catholic guilt knew exactly how Finn felt when he sang Into Temptation and Nails In My Feet. And how nothing felt better than a mass sing-along of Weather With You or a mass dance-along to Sister Madly.
Nothing except doing it in front of the Opera House, even if in 2016 the fussy and the prissy have limited each of the four concerts to a piddling-by-comparison 6000 bodies for a sing-and-dance-along.
Still, at this size it feels right to complete the journey from what-Neil-did-after-splitting-Split Enz to one of the five pillars of Australian music in the 1980s, a quintet of giants who are treading familiar paths and now all have a spot in the ARIA hall of fame.
This week, Australian Made, a 30-year-old film featuring the concert tour of INXS, before the death of charismatic frontman Michael Hutchence, and Jimmy Barnes, has begun screening, one more effort by INXS to keep tapping into a post-Hutchence life.
Barnes' group, Cold Chisel, continues to sell albums and concert tickets – making more money directly than during their heyday – despite the death of songwriting drummer Steve Prestwich. Next year, Midnight Oil will reform after lead singer Peter Garrett recovered from the necessary death of his political career with a solo album.
And John Farnham, who was the biggest winner at the first ARIA Awards and continues to tour despite the many gags about yet another retirement (and the death of his iconic mullet) will be a special guest and perform at the ARIAs.
Even Crowded House would have to concede that there is being liked by Australia, there's being loved by Australia and then there's John Farnham.
The power and perils of being loved
The power of being beloved, and its limitations, are evident in the Crowded House series of concerts.
After many frustrations for performers and audiences alike at shows by Bjork, The National and Florence and the Machine, the significantly restrictive noise limits for outdoor shows – what might be called the "keeping Alan Jones and other well connected neighbours happy" rule – has been modified by the Department of Planning and Environment.
This means Crowded House will be able to play a bit louder during the weekday shows than previously has been the case. That is, as loudly as is allowed at the weekends, something which has pleased Neil Finn.
"It was on our minds from the very beginning as I'd heard some stories about [concerts in] that area," he said.
While that is still not particularly loud, certainly by comparison with the farewell to the world concert in 1996, let alone the Rocktober concerts of the 1970s, it will be helped by a new sound level monitoring location. The volume will be measured from the sound mixing desk on the site rather than at points around Circular Quay and the harbour and is expected to provide some volume to match the raised audience voices.
Less successful a negotiation has been that between Crowded House management and the conglomerate that owns both the tour promoter, Live Nation, and the ticketing agency handling the shows, Ticketmaster.
When Crowded House tickets went on sale in October and sold out within minutes there was an outcry from fans who missed out on the few tickets offered but saw many immediately made available on the re-sale site operated by and profited on by Ticketmaster.
The suggestion was that ticket scalpers, likely using automated programs – or bots – had secured tickets and effectively were being sanctioned by Ticketmaster in their reselling at mark-ups of up to 400 per cent.
Finn said the process had been "very alarming and concerning" for the band, which at the time said little as it sought answers from Ticketmaster and now has left open the possibility of changing promoter and ticket retailer in the future.
"We were upset by it and we are endeavouring to make sure that it will never happen with us again," Finn said. "And I would say if we couldn't be assured of it we would probably move to a different set up."