Everything in the mix for reunion tour

Photo: Peter Meecham

Ten years on: Dave Dobbyn, Bic Runga and Tim Finn.

Relevant offers

Entertainment

Beneath the covers Where the heart is Poetic justice Film review: Contagion Film review: The Thing End of an error Tall tales Short and varied menu Spin your wheels On borrowed time

THESE are the things you learn on the road: small-town lamingtons taste better than the city ones; there's nothing lonelier than watching infomercials on your own in a hotel room; and Dave Dobbyn in a wig and a miniskirt looks uncannily like "a pubescent Janet Frame" (his own words).

It's almost a decade since Dobbyn, 52, and fellow musical legends Bic Runga, 33, and Tim Finn, 57, took to the road together (the cross-dressing was in Palmerston North, where there was an op shop temptingly close to the venue and time to kill), but the memories are fresh.

Well, most of the memories: the trio are a bit anxious about getting their harmonies right for the reunion, an 18-date tour early next year of wineries from Tutukaka in the north to Arrowtown in the south. So they're practising when they can. When they met the Sunday Star-Times to announce the tour, they'd just finished their third session.

"We're up to the first verse of one song," says Finn. They all cackle, but it's hard to say if that's because he's lying or because he's not.

"When we're on our own we know what we're doing," says Finn. "But when we get together it's like it's a new band. We're wary of each other. We consider ourselves bumbling amateurs half the time, especially when we're trying to work out harmonies."

"It's like if you get three architects together and ask them to build a house," says Dobbyn. "Imagine that."

The band's name, if it had one, would probably be "Finnrungadobbyn", says Finn. (Dobbyn: "Sounds like some sort of rave fest in the middle of a forest somewhere.")

They make a curious yet cosy group of cultural giants around the table at promoter Brent Eccles' Auckland home. Dobbyn bounces and chatters away like a holy fool, full of quips that are baffling at the time but make perfect, poetical sense when you play back the tape. Runga, quiet and beautiful, is wolfing marmalade on Vogels and lets the men commandeer the conversation, slipping in the odd sly line when Dobbyn pauses for breath. And Finn strikes a measured, stern and schoolmasterly tone.

There's real warmth between them – they've admired each other's songs as long as they can remember.

Before releasing her first album Drive in 1997, Runga was the support act for Dobbyn and then the Finn Brothers. A generation earlier, when Dobbyn discovered Finn's band Split Enz, "there was a circus going on in my head and these guys were part of it".

And Finn recalls going up to Dobbyn for a "drunken ramble" at a Hamilton gig about the brilliance of "Be Mine Tonight". He's still in awe of Dobbyn's ability to find a note "that just rubs against the chord in a really good way".

There'll be 21 songs in their set – seven by each. Bic has asked if she can take the lead vocal for Dobbyn's "Oughta Be in Love" and Finn's "I Hope I Never", but the decisions haven't been made yet.

There may be another song to debut too. The "seed" came from Finn. Dobbyn has written a middle section and a couple of lyrics. And Runga? "I've been sent off to write the rest of a verse."

Even stars can be starstruck. Runga was "blown away by watching these guys writing a song in front of me – because they looked like different people. They looked 10% better-looking".

Finn has a theory: "I read somewhere that people were the most sexually attractive when they were really confident. So when we're writing songs and it's working, we feel the most confident we're ever going to feel, so we actually look better."

Dobbyn: "It makes me feel frisky just thinking about it."

The 2010 More FM Winery Tour runs from February 5 to March 6, and includes 18 performances at 16 wineries. Also performing are Boh Runga with Che Fu. For gig dates, tickets, www.thewinerytour.co.nz.

- © Fairfax NZ News