EDMONTON - We'll never know if Paul Hester would still be alive if Crowded House had never broken up, but the drummer's suicide in 2005 was apparently the catalyst for the band getting back together again -- so there's a grim paradox for you.

A spiritual person might believe Hester "would've wanted it that way" and is still with Crowded House in spirit -- because plenty of same was witnessed at the Jubilee Auditorium Wednesday night.

It wasn't a "crowded house," the crowd count coming in around 1,800, but the band enjoyed the same sort of warm welcome as they got when they reformed a few years back, just in time for melody to be back in vogue.

This was more than just a trip down memory lane for the fans. It was a living, rocking part of music history, still creatively vital into its third decade.

Writing pop songs has been called a craft, but it really is an art, and Neil Finn is Picasso. If you don't believe it, catch the hooks, or let the hooks catch you, in such Crowded House gems as Something So Strong, Weather With You, Fall at Your Feet, Private Universe (sensing a theme here) or let's face it, basically any Crowded House song. Enjoy the unusual chord progressions that fit together like a satisfying jigsaw puzzle. Marvel at the clever wordplay, the romantic poetry. Enjoy the weaving melodies, the elegant interplay of dynamics. These guys are masters of melody, groove, chord structure and arrangement -- all the tools of the pop song artist -- plus one more thing sadly lacking in so much modern pop: the convincing live performance of all of the above.

In a show heavy on new material and the joy of rocking out to a half-full theatre -- much better than a half- empty one -- Finn and his boys moved tastefully through a remarkable catalogue of hits that spans 25 years.

Yes, with the possible exception of Don't Dream It's Over, they are mainly minor hits, but collectively representing a rich slice of late 80s-early '90s pop music that seemed above all the pretty grumblings from the changing of the rock 'n' roll guard going on around the same time. Nirvana's gone. Crowded House is still going strong.

From the opening of Whispers and Moans on a stage decorated with glowing knick-knacks, the set was all over the map. Songs like Fall at Your Feet had that elusive "Beatleseque" quality -- that is, sounding like the Beatles without actually being derivative of the Beatles.

Tricky. The ballads were amazing, particularly on Walking on the Spot, just piano and a little melodica. With bassist Nick Seymour, Mark Hart on keys and drummer Matt Sherrod, the band rocked out impressively hard on songs like It's Only Natural and the Split Enz encore History Never Repeats. They flexed experimental muscle on fresher material like Saturday Sun and Amsterdam, and even found time for a bit of funky jamming here and there.

There was a little Neil Finn freestyle rap about the milkman who appears in Walking on the Spot.

Finn held it all together with his folksy charm, and amiable small talk, at one point engaging the crowd in a discussion of Edmonton weather. He and Nick agreed that that "dry as a popcorn fart" is a good line. It was strange that there seemed to be so many hecklers in the crowd.

Not hecklers, exactly. These were fans who loved the band -- they were anti-hecklers -- and wasted no opportunity to shout their devotion. By the end of the night, the entire crowd was on its feet doing the same.

An unknown Sheryl Crow once opened for Crowded House, proving Finn and his boys have good ears for opening acts, too. Look where she is now. It's hard to say if the same fate of fame awaits Wednesday's support, New Zealand's Lawrence Arabia.

The band may be too quirky, too scruffy, too lacking in female sexuality, which is to say none. Good band, though. With songs about being in love with your teachers, about smoking too much and about couples who love/hate/are afraid of each other because "they want to screw each other," the band unleashed devastating quadruple falsetto harmonies and a general jangly feel reminiscent of the great "food" bands of the '90s, Lemonheads, Blind Melon, Cake.

They even showed an inexplicable tropical side to the Beatles-meets -Monty Python persona.

Good pick, Neil Finn. Love to have thus guy make a mix-tape for us. Come to think of it, he did. Even the music they played on the sound system during intermission was great.