23 December 2021

When you come back home and you find me waiting there

Thursday music corner: Don McGlashan and Harry Sinclair's The Front Lawn was a musical theatre duo formed in 1985, and who released two albums, one in 1989 and the second in 1993. By the time their first album was recorded they had been joined in the group temporarily by Jennifer Ward-Lealand. 

Their first album, Songs from the Front Lawn, features the classic New Zealand single When You Come Back Home as its opening track. The album also features the ebullient Tomorrow Night, which featured in a karaoke scene in the Wellington pool-playing caper film Stickmen (2001), and Andy, which was written in memory of McGlashan’s late brother. Andy appears in the APRA ‘Top 100 New Zealand songs of all time’ list. In the 1989 New Zealand Music Awards the Front Lawn won three awards for Most Promising Group, Best Film Soundtrack/Compilation, and International Achievement.

Don McGlashan, formerly of punk outfit Blam Blam Blam, went on to found the Muttonbirds, which achieved great success in the 1990s and early 2000s. He has performed solo since 2003. Harry Sinclair has directed three feature films: Topless Women Talk About Their Lives (1997), The Price of Milk (2000) and Toy Love (2002). He directed the TV series ‘90210’ in 2009 and 2010, and in his acting career gained a place in history as the ancient king Isildur in the opening sequences of The Fellowship of the Ring.

The Front Lawn – When You Come Back Home (1989)

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