Split Enz Reunite For The First Time In Nearly Two Decades For NZ Festival

We knew that Split Enz celebrating their 50th anniversary would be a big deal, but we never expected them to reunite and play a show.

However, that’s exactly what will happen on Friday, 27 February, at New Zealand’s Electric Avenue festival. For the 2026 event, Split Enz will reform and play their first show in nearly two decades as the festival’s headliners.

Formed by Tim Finn in 1972, Split Enz are behind some of the most beloved hits of the ‘70s and ‘80s, including I Got You, Message To My Girl, Six Months On A Leaky Boat, History Never Repeats, One Step Ahead, and many more. The band disbanded in 1984 and has only periodically reunited for tours and special events, including the 2009 Sound Relief concert.

“There was a seed that was planted with Neil Finn when we were backstage at a charity event that we ran before Electric Avenue a couple of years ago,” Electric Avenue Festival Director Callam Mitchell explained (via The Press).

Continuing conversations with the band’s representatives this year, Mitchell added, “We managed to get in touch with the right people, asked very politely, offered a very respectful fee, and somehow it worked.”

Exclusively performing at the festival, Split Enz top a “multi-generational” bill, sharing headlining duties with Australian DJ Dom Dolla, who will hit the stage on Saturday, 28 February.

The line-up also features big names such as Becky Hill, The Streets, Kesha, Basement Jaxx, Pendulum, Leftfield, Sammy Virji, Sudan Archives, LAB, and more. Festival organisers are expecting approximately 45,000 punters per day.

Mitchell describes next year’s festival as its most diverse, targeting a broad audience: “hence the tagline of five decades of music in one weekend.”

Mitchell concluded that Split Enz have “got such a big catalogue of music, even the 18/19-year-old kids who would be going for Dom Dolla will know a lot of Split Enz tracks.

“I like to think that we have an international flavour, and we’ve got close to 20 international artists, but having Split Enz at the top of the bill there on the Friday night really is flying a big Kiwi flag.”

Pre-sale tickets for Electric Avenue 2026 will be available on Tuesday, 9 September, followed by the general sale on Friday, 12 September. You can find more ticketing information on the festival website.

This November, Split Enz will celebrate 50 years of their debut album, Mental Notes, by releasing the first instalment of a landmark archival project, ENZyclopedia Volumes One & Two.

Curated in close collaboration with the band, the project offers an in-depth exploration of their formative years. It showcases their evolution through a deluxe 5-CD box set or a 3-LP set accompanied by a Blu-Ray edition.

Discussing the 50th anniversary of Mental Notes, Tim Finn said, “Mental Notes was an album we carried around in our heads and hearts for a few years before we actually got the chance to make it.

“Phil [Judd] and I had imagined epic and luxurious soundscapes that would stand alongside the masterpieces from the sixties we had fallen in love with in our most impressionable years, far removed in a land at the bottom of the world.

“Which is why, thinking we had fallen short, we tried to make our first album twice, once in Sydney and again in London in 1976. So, the ‘real’ Mental Notes is still hovering somewhere between two records, never to be fully realised. However, nowadays I can hear beauty in the flaws, and completeness in the imperfections.”

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