Mike Pender sings Crowded House

royclough · Post by **royclough** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 11:57 pm

Recently got a copy of Mike Pender performing Crowded House's "Weather With You" this is not a live recording but a proper studio recording taken from an album called "Back To The Future" which was originally called "Sixties Sing Nineties" and was issued on a fairly obscure label. Basically it is a number of sixties artists performing tracks from the nineties as original title suggests. Dave Dee performs Oasis Gerry Marsden does a Take That number but the one of interst to me was Mike's contribution.

This got me thinking and has given me inspiration for a new article The MIKE PENDER SOLO ALBUM "THAT NEVER WAS."

admin · Post by **admin** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 1:41 am

Nice work Roy. Always thinking. "Weather With You" is a terrific composition. Does Mike do it justice?

royclough · Post by **royclough** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 1:53 am

Yes he certainly does though I personally never liked the song anyway I'll let you judge for yourself shortly

admin · Post by **admin** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 9:01 am

Thanks to Roy Clough, I have now had the opportunity to listen to Mike Pender's cover of "Weather With You."

Mike follows the arrangement of Neil Finn very closely up until the last 50 seconds or so of this song. In the beginning of the song, the harmony is nicely done and is true to the version recorded by Crowed House. Just prior to the instrumental tagged on near the end of the song I felt that Mike ran out of steam a bit as he sang, "the weather, the weather with you." He did make a good recovery, however, and ended the vocal on stronger terms.

I am less taken with the instrumetal that is added with 50 seconds remaining. This is where the sound engineers have taken over and added a "synthesized whistling effect" that I think detracts from the simplicity and clean sound of this composition. They have also added a bit of "flange" as well for good measure and it also takes away from the song. To the credit of the bass player, there is a series innovative bass runs here which pulls the rather random whistling and flanging together.

I quite enjoyed the song overall, with the percussion (drums and congas) in the beginning catching my attention. Mike is at the upper part of his vocal range in parts and I hear strain in his voice. I give him full marks for covering this song which is not an easy vocal.

I did enjoy the harnomy and the tempo of the song and the acoustic guitar work that made use of the digital effects of compression and sustain I believe. I can do without the electronic ending which takes away from the song in my view.

In the end, I would recommend the song to those who enjoy Mike. He does do it justice. Should it come on the music docket I will judge it again. While I suspect that for some juries there may be reasonable doubt at the cash, should this song be representative of the quality overall I would buy it. I rest my case.