Neil Finn looked irrelevancy in the eye and didn't blink.

"I'm at a point in America where obscurity was beckoning," he says from his New Zealand home. "Now there's a process happening underneath the surface."

Indeed, the former Crowded House leader is getting even more acclaim - if that's possible - than in his power-pop heyday. He's no longer tied to a major label and touring is tougher in these hard economic times, but he's having the time of his life.

"There are two distinct alternative realities in the music business. One is completely dictated by marketing, radio, retail, record companies and Billboard charts. But underneath that is a whole substructure of music that's passed around by enthusiasts - record-store junkies, journalists who have hopped into that kind of network," he says. "Something very substantial comes out of that. It might not amount to gold records, but it's substantial."

Even though Denver is a Finn/Crowded House stronghold, Finn hasn't made an appearance here in nearly five years - not since a dazzling, career-spanning show at the Paramount Theatre. Fans are thrilled that he's playing the gorgeous Gothic Theatre on Saturday night.

"You're quite a long way from other places," he says. "It's not that it's harder to tour or there's less interest. I've got more interest in touring now than ever before. I always try to get over your way if I can."

And it's truly up to him now; the freedom he has gives him a new musical renaissance.

"There's a lot to be gained by being in scale when you put a record out. With a major label and major investment in making the record or promoting the record, everybody's on tenterhooks," Finn says. "You get a couple of bad weeks where you don't get the exposure you need, the whole thing can be dropped like a hot potato. It's not good for an artist to feel like your work is that expendable or that it should be judged by that criteria. (With a smaller label) people aren't going to fall over if on the second week we don't have the radio play we were looking for."

Indeed, it's been a strange career path for Finn. After joining big brother Tim's band, Split Enz, in the late '70s, he helped give the group its biggest hit, I Got You. He then launched Crowded House for another series of hits: Don't Dream It's Over, Weather With You, Something So Strong, Better Be Home Soon and more. That gave way to a Finn Brothers project and the hit Only Talking Sense. His first true solo album didn't come until 1998's Try Whistling This, with the hit Sinner. The follow-up, One Nil, was released overseas two years ago but lacked U.S. distribution till recently; by the time that happened last year, he'd renamed the album One All, took off a couple of songs and added more.

"It's a fascinating path I've been on in recent years - the diversity of experiences," he says. "It fired me up more for music than I ever have been. I'm loving playing shows, and I've got songs coming through that are the equal of anything I've done. I have to say I'm in a pretty good state, apart from the odd day of angst and depression which we all face."

He reworked One Nil before release here because "after having had a year to live with this, I thought I could tweak it and improve it."

Would he go back and do that to any of his other records?

"Probably every single one, but you normally don't get the chance, and it's probably a good thing," he says. "This time I had the opportunity and I took it."

What he usually does is move on, cranking out more songs than he can put on albums.

"It's nice that it seems I'm prolific. Sometimes it seems like I'm not. I've always believed it's possible to write a song every day, and I'm far from that. But you've got to have a life as well. You've got to live life and be who you are so that the songs arrive," Finn says.

His recent live album and DVD, 7 Worlds Collide, found him collaborating with artists as diverse as Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, The Smiths' Johnny Marr and members of Radiohead.

Influencing the likes of those people "is one of the best aspects of being a musician," he says. "It's right up there with fans' coming up and saying they had a very difficult period of their lives and the songs really helped them through. That feels like the most useful you can possibly be."

With so many albums under his belt, it's hard picking a set list. Fans have been thrilled that he's been mixing it up every night, throwing in hits, favorites and obscurities such as his near-nightly cover of The Smiths' There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.

"When people yell out (a song title), if they pick a good moment, there's always a chance I'll try it right on the spot, even if I haven't played it for 10 years," he says.

There's good news for fans who believe that the work Neil and Tim Finn have done together - Split Enz, the Finn Brothers and the Crowded House album Woodface - is among their best: Another Finn Brothers album will be in the works as soon as this tour is over. The duo hopes to go into the studio in May.

"There's something special when Tim and I sing together, because our voices are pretty seamlessly entwined there," Finn says. "And certainly, the way we write together - there have been occasions when we hit something, the two of us looking each other in the eye. And that is something special."