Newcastle trio silverchair were voted best live at the inaugural Australian Live Music Awards, held last Friday (October 8) in Melbourne before 350 members of the music industry and the public. Big Day Out won the best live event category, while its promoters, Vivien Lees and Ken West, got best promoters. Other winners were the Sydney Metro (best live venue), Gregg Donovan (best tour manager) and Gerling (best live emerging act). The ALMAs, organised as part of Australian Music Week, also gave awards to Triple M for their programming of Aussie acts during AMW, Ausmusic and APRA for being major sponsors, the Victorian Arts Centre who hosted the venue (Black Box) and the Victoria University of Technology whose music business students organised the event. The ALMAs were hosted by James Simpson and house band was Xavier and The Hum.