16 May 2026 \u2013 Brisbane Entertainment Centre \u2013 words and pictures by Bec Harbour<\/em><\/p>\nOne of the acts I was most excited to see at Bluesfest was Split Enz \u2013 so when Blues went belly up and no Brisbane side-shows scheduled I wrote it off as a band I would never get to see.<\/p>\n
But out of the ashes of Blues, Brisbane got a side-show \u2013 hurrah!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brisbane Entertainment Centre had a generous line-up outside when I arrived with people heading immediately to merch to grab t-shirts and tote bags with neon green logos for the band. People immediately headed for their seats to be ready for the support \u2013 Vika and Linda who have been around a long time and are part of the fabric of Australian music.<\/p>\n
Dressed in bright white suits, Vika and Linda\u2019s voices carried to the vast arena\u2019s corners opening with a Paul Kelly cover \u2018Be Careful What You Pray For\u2019. They ran us through a best of career highlights and the crowd loved it. They talked about listening to Split Enz with their parents in the car on road trips and how childhood dreams do come true about touring with your heroes. \u2018Pigface and Calendula\u2019, a Black Sorrows cover \u2018Never Let You Go\u2019 and a song inspired by their love of ABBA \u2018Bliss\u2019 all made it into the set.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tVika & Linda \u2013 BEC \u2013 photos by Bec Harbour<\/em><\/p>\nA quick change over while punters stood up and stretched and grabbed drinks and food. I was thinking about the set, what would they play? There are so many Split Enz songs that I knew that were released as singles, never mind the deep cuts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Finally, the lights dimmed and an odd satin covered figure appeared on stage right \u2013 it bobbed about and then disappeared. Then a larger satin covered thing appeared and shuffled closer to the front of the stage \u2013 the crowd were mystified! Then the satin was pulled off and the band appeared from underneath all looking like they were having the best joke. They all took their places on stage and clicked into the first song \u2018Shark Attack\u2019 then Tim Finn addressed the Brisbane crowd, telling them it had been 19 years since they\u2019d played here, there were probably some children here that had been conceived since then. They also talked about how Brisbane embraced them first and gave them their first top 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tSplit Enz \u2013 BEC \u2013 photos by Bec Harbour<\/em><\/p>\nThey then struck the opening notes of \u2018History Never Repeats\u2019 and the crowd went off, singing along and dancing in their chairs. The first of a few songs from the album\u00a0True Colours,\u00a0<\/em>\u2018Poor Boy\u2019 was played then on into \u2018Nobody Takes Me Seriously Anyway\u2019, \u2018Give It a Whirl\u2019 and \u2018Dirty Creature\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe band was introduced by Tim; Noel Crombie (percussion), Eddie Raynor (keys), Neil Finn (guitar) and touring members James Milne (with his pointy bass) and drummer Matt Eccles. And the hits kept coming, \u2018Time For a Change\u2019, \u2018One Step Ahead\u2019 and \u2018Missing Person\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tSplit Enz \u2013 BEC \u2013 photos by Bec Harbour<\/em><\/p>\nThere was some discourse from Neil regarding a walk around the Brisbane River and encountering Felons Brewing and the number of eateries playing doof \u2013 Tim chimed in and added an anecdote about one of Split Enz first gigs, that they were asked not to come back as they were disrupting peoples digestion at the restaurant they were playing at \u2013 somewhere in there, the Finn brothers worked out what they wanted to say and it was something about music and digestion. Neil then kicked off my favourite Split Enz song, \u2018Message To My Girl\u2019. We had a quick succession of songs \u2018Double Happy\u2019, \u2018Stuff and Nonsense\u2019 and \u2018Matinee Idyll\u2019 (I think \u2013 I am yet to not recognise a song tonight).\u00a0<\/p>\n
The oompah of \u2018My Mistake\u2019 had the crowd almost on its feet and the crowd were singing along almost drowning out the band. A couple more songs, \u2018Pioneer\u2019 and \u2018Hard Act to Follow\u2019 then we were onto the final three, three of their biggest mind you \u2013 \u2018Six Months In A Leaky Boat\u2019, \u2018I Got You\u2019 and \u2018I See Red\u2019. And with that Split Enz left the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tSplit Enz \u2013 BEC \u2013 photos by Bec Harbour<\/em><\/p>\nNot for long (you can always tell when they are coming back as the house lights don\u2019t go on) and they all bounced back on stage and we got three more. These were \u2018Spellbound\u2019, the beautiful haunting \u2018I Hope I Never\u2019 and closing out on \u2018Strait Old Line\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think a single person walked out of Brisbane Entertainment Centre disappointed by tonight, they got a hit song, jam packed set, a few deeper cuts and some solid entertainment from a band, whose sound is evergreen and looked to be having the best time tonight. For a kid who was raised on Countdown \u2013 I also had the best time seeing a band who I was introduced to there!<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tSplit Enz \u2013 BEC \u2013 photos by Bec Harbour<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source thelivewire.com.au \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"16 May 2026 \u2013 Brisbane Entertainment Centre \u2013 words and pictures by Bec Harbour One of the acts I was most excited to see at Bluesfest was Split Enz \u2013 so when Blues went belly up and no Brisbane side-shows scheduled I wrote it off as a band I would never get to see. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2421829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2421828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/LIVE-Split-Enz-at-Brisbane-Entertainment-Centre.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2421828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2421830,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421828\/revisions\/2421830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2421829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2421828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2421828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2421828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}