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Review: Crowded House Deliver a Powerhouse Finish at Fremantle Prison After a Goofy Start

A loose, playful opening gave way to a louder run of Crowded House favourites at Fremantle Prison. The four-star review praises the second-half surge, Neil Finn’s rapport and the singular setting, while noting the slow start.
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Crowded House’s 3 December 2025 concert at Fremantle Prison took a while to find its force. The opening stretch was loose, playful and built around less familiar material; after a 25-minute interval, the band returned with louder guitars and a run of favourites that turned the show into a much more powerful finish. PerthNow reviewer Zach Margolius gave the performance four stars out of five: an affectionate, qualified verdict rather than an unreserved triumph.

Why the show felt like two different concerts

The band started at 7 p.m. without a separate support act. Neil Finn joked that Crowded House was its own opening act, christening the mock group “Her Majesty’s Pleasure.” The opening section moved among “Four Seasons in One Day,” “Weather With You,” “In My Own Shell” and “It Was a Small Detail,” with Vika and Linda Bull joining on backing vocals.

There was plenty of relaxed interaction, but also a deliberate lack of polish. Finn changed guitars, the band hesitated over song keys, and he challenged the crowd to beat his stool-swivel record. Margolius likened the first 45 minutes to a jam or rehearsal, writing: “It wasn’t polished, it wasn’t clean. It probably wasn’t for everyone.” The informality gave the set its humour, though the less familiar choices also left the opening short on momentum for some listeners.

After a 25-minute break, the band came back in changed clothes and without Finn’s swivel chair. The sound shifted decisively: guitars, bass and drums came forward, and the group moved into songs with more immediate recognition and drive. “Fall at Your Feet,” “Something So Strong,” “Distant Sun,” “Private Universe” and “Don’t Dream It’s Over” formed part of that second-half run. A piano-led “Groove Is in the Heart” moment and “Better Be Home Soon” brought the concert to its close.

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What worked—and what did not

The finish supplied the payoff

The review’s strongest praise is for the second half, when familiar material and a fuller, louder arrangement gave the show the energy the opening had withheld. That contrast is the point of the “goofy start” framing: the looseness was not the whole performance, and the concert gathered force rather than sustaining one mood from beginning to end.

The opening asked for patience

Margolius’s main reservation was that one or two more familiar songs earlier might have kept more people engaged. The opening’s playful detours and uncertainty could read as charming spontaneity, but they also meant the set took time to connect. The review does not condemn the experiment; it suggests that its placement and pacing made the early stretch a tougher sell.

Finn and the setting kept it personal

Finn’s easy rapport and the band’s WA-specific banter helped make the performance feel rooted in its audience rather than like a routine run-through. Fremantle Prison added a striking atmosphere to that exchange. As Margolius noted, the setting carries its own time contrast: Crowded House had just released its first album in 1986, when Fremantle Prison was still operating as a correctional facility. That context gives the venue resonance without making the concert a history lesson.

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How the other reports fit

Coverage of Crowded House’s 5 December Fremantle Prison concert also describes a restrained or acoustic opening followed by a more energetic electric section. X-Press Magazine’s account of the 3 December date likewise characterizes the early portion as relaxed and acoustic before the main set picked up. Those accounts support the broad two-part shape, but they are not a substitute for the specific song details in Margolius’s review of 3 December.

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Setlist.fm’s user-contributed record concerns 5 December, not the concert reviewed here, so it should not be used to fill in the 3 December setlist. Ticketmaster comments offer individual reactions—including “Eventually got good” and “Good chilled vibes in a prison!”—but they are anecdotal comments, not a measure of the crowd as a whole.

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