Message from Peter Green on the Frenz forum

Suzanne- see you guys in NZ and yes you and Rene have made the Life Membership Soundcheck list for Auckland. Remember it's only 6 people.....

How it all started......

Ever since as a child I found out that I actually had family living on the other side of the world I have been fascinated by New Zealand! My mother's eldest brother moved to NZ at the end of the fifties and has lived there ever since. He is now in his eighties, has been married to my aunt Clarrie for many years and has children and grandchildren.
I've been reading his letters to the family for many years, and there always was a magical quality about it, to me anyway! So when I was 10 years old and I had to do a geography assignment at school, Australia and New Zealand were the obvious choice for me. I wrote to the embassy and they sent me a lot of material about both countries. To keep a long story short, from this information I deducted that I was related to the Maori's and my mother could not convince me otherwise! But at this point the fascination with NZ (and also Australia, albeit a little less) began.
So when at the end of the seventies I heard a band on the radio from New Zealand called Split Enz, I became very interested! And I have been a fan ever since, although I have to admit things really took off with Crowded House! But when CH split up I remained a fan, and since then I have followed the careers of Neil and Tim Finn faithfully. So when in December last year it turned out that the Finns were coming to the Netherlands, I bought tickets immediately, initially just for one concert. My brother and I would go to Utrecht together. But then through the fanclub I met Rene, who intended to come all the way from America just for the European tour, so I decided to buy tickets for 'some' more concerts and meet with her over here.
But right at the start of this European tour something very sad happend. Neil Finn's best friend and Crowded House former drummer Paul Hester took his own life in Elsternwick Park in Melbourne, just two days after the beginning of the tour. Needless to say, Neil Finn was too distraught with grief to carry on, so the whole tour was cancelled. Unfortunately, at that point Rene was already up in the air! But she stayed in Europe anyway, and later on her friend Cindy joined her. I met with the girls in Amsterdam, and we had a great time!

But when it turned out that the tour would be partly rescheduled, I managed to convince Rene to come back again, this time with her husband Tim. And my husband came to one concert too, and later on the four of us went to Ireland, where Rene and I went to see the shows as the guys did some male bonding over a few beers and a pool table. As almost everyone who reads this knows about the great time we had, I won't elaborate on it any further. But feel free to ask if you have an hour or six!

Anyway, after the European tour the Finns went on to Australia for more concerts, which is where they are now, and finally they will go home to New Zealand for, as far as I know, the last leg of the Everyone Is Here tour. Before I go on, for the right context I have to say that Rene, like me, has always wanted to go to NZ too!
So what first was a joke (when we said goodbye at Dublin Airport we said :'See you in New Zealand!' ), then became a challenge and now seems to become reality: we are going!
I will leave next Thursday (July 28), meet Rene in Los Angeles and then together we go on to Wellington..... I'm not sure for how many hours I will be traveling (not so sure I want to know either), however, on July 30 we'll land in Wellington, just in time for the first concert!

So, have I lost it?? I probably have! On the other hand, I've never done anything like this during my whole life! I also don't know if I'll ever be able to do it again....

So if you're wondering why this site is called Anything Can Happen, I will end this first blog with a quote from the Finn Brother's song from their latest album Everyone Is Here:

I could never give it up
I could never relent
And I can't wait to see
What will happen to me next

And I will take my chances
'Cos anything can happen
I don't believe its over
'Cos anything can happen

Appropriate, isn´t it!