In their fathers' tracks

By Russell Baillie

It starts off feeling downright homely in the old hall tonight.

"Good evening I'm Uncle Tim," says Tim Finn taking the microphone for brief MC duties, "I've always known that Liam has got a good beat ..."

And without any further ado, he introduces Betchadupa. The quartet lope adolescently across the room and clamber on the tiny stage of the Ellen Melville Hall in Auckland's High St.

One of them is Liam Finn - nephew-of-Tim, son-of-Neil - who takes his place at the drumkit. Hold on ... isn't he meant to be the singer? No, that seems to be the chunky guy in the glam-rock wig. The band crank into a shouty quickstep punk number which lasts all of thirty seconds. Then maintaining silly grins, they swop instruments. Matt Eccles - son of Citizen Band and Angels drummer Brent - ditches the hairpiece and takes his place behind the kit.

Peering out from under his long locks Liam Finn straps on a guitar and heads to the microphone, bassist Joe Bramley and guitarist Chris Garland line up on either side.

That initial blast of noise aside, it's soon apparent that these still-at-school 16 year olds have quite some playing chops. And their set shows so far as their debut six-track EP - this early evening show celebrating its launch - that there's plenty more where that came from song-wise.

Yes, there are some inevitable family resemblances to the famous brothers who linger down the back with their respective spouses.

The voice of younger musical Finn has a resonance similar to his father's. The young Eccles is, like his father, a hard hitter. Oddly Bramley looks like a young blond version of Crowded House's bassist Nick Seymour. And in their precocious way, the humour they display between songs also resembles the zany, live bonhomie of Neil Finn's old band.

But when the mood takes they still play with the noisy brattiness you'd expect of young members of the post-Nirvana generation, albeit ones who can pull off a gently heart-tugging ballad like EP track Spill The Light among it all. And such nice manners, too. When the over-enthused front rows start hoisting each other roofwards, Liam patiently asks them a few times to please stop crowd surfing.

Perhaps Betchadupa' self-assurance is inevitable. After all, the Finn offspring was part of his father's backing band - both drums and guitar - on the world tour for solo album, Try Whistling This. Not that they've had any coaching.

Talking afterwards, a clearly proud Neil Finn says he's purposefully stayed out of the way. Though inevitably he's had to play taxi driver sometimes. Oh, and his son has six months to get his own gear. It seems "Dad, can I borrow the guitar," is a line much heard around the Finn household.

The band finishes, come back for an encore, then slouch off happy.

They might be a curiosity because of the family connections. But considering the exciting evidence so far, betcha Betchadupa outgrow that novelty factor by the next school holidays.