An effortless, thoughtful set pleased fans from the various stages of Finn's career.

As long as there have been music critics, they have delighted in complaining about self-indulgent, slick, underdeveloped tunes. Then, every once in a while, a musician like Neil Finn takes to the road and all those criticisms fade away into pop musical bliss.

Finn writes songs that are sweet and catchy, twisting and surprising, thoughtful and pretty. He's been making music for almost three decades, and the audience at Toronto's Palais Royale Tuesday night was representative of his many fan bases.

Split Enz loyalists cheered when Finn launched into One Step Ahead. Next to them stood the Crowded House eighties refugees shuffling in unison with the encore rendition of World Where You Live. Cutting across these groups were Finn's own people, fans devoted to songs on the two solo albums he has released thus far. These tracks are the best work of his career.

Finn was building a reputation as a consummate pop craftsman before he struck out on his own. His most recent album, One All, confirms this position, and also allows a peek at an artist not afraid of making a loud noise. New material was sprinkled throughout the set, with a rendition of Driving Me Mad setting a high bar.

The tremendous Hole in the Ice followed not long after. The song alternates between a Beatles-esque chorus delivered like machine-gun fire and the flowing melody it interrupts. In the same booming style was his version of Distant Sun from the days of Crowded House. He started alone with just his guitar for accompaniment, stripping all arrangements and fluidity from the melody. The band later joined him at full throttle, and together they turned what had been a somewhat emotionally distant tune into one of immediate energy.

Still at the heart of Finn's songwriting, however, are pop ballads. Into the Sunset, with the gifted and underappreciated Lisa Germano on a moody violin, sounded like a fairy tale set to music. Last to Know was another Germano-accompanied tune of equal parts regret and acceptance, the bread and butter of the singer-songwriter.

What truly distinguishes Finn from a garden-variety pop poet is a song like Anytime. A potentially dark meditation on the fragility of life becomes a tribute to it instead. A combination of high harmonies and dark detours built on a deceptively simple melody to create a Marshall Crenshaw-like confection that perfectly matches the lyrics.

As with his whole set, Finn lightly skipped through the song, making it all look effortless even in the soaring heat of the club. Charming, sweet and sorrowful, there is nothing to bury in Finn's music.