Toronto, Nov. 30, 1995

By VAL GOODMAN

I'm in my friends car at the back of The Warehouse, wondering where all the people are for the best night of my life. I'm seeing my favourite band at this club: silverchair. My friend Deanna, rolls down the car window, and we are blasted with the banging sensation of Ben Gillies drumming. We then hear the angry howl of Daniel Johns' singing voice. (Of course) we begin to scream! Deanna's dad turned around in his car seat and rolled his eyes at us and said we should wipe the drool from our faces!

We then drove to the front of the building and stopped across the street from the club. We took off our jackets and left the car to stand in line. There were about 30 people already waiting in line. We cursed ourselves for leaving late. It was minus 10 in Toronto that night, and we were standing in our t-shirts. These three girls came up behind us. We began to talk, which took up the time. Then a girl near the front of the line pointed at one of the windows at the top of the building and yelled "IT'S DANIEL!!!" Everyone (including me) looked and there he was, standing in the window, we all began to scream, as Daniel was being pulled away from the window by a dude in a tuuk.

About two hours later a man came out and told us to form one line. My friend took the opportunity to bud. We got passed about twenty people. I had a Kermit The Frog doll with me that my friends and I had written on. As I was walking in, a guard told me that no frogs were aloud, then smiled. I laughed then went inside. I handed my ticket to the collector. He ripped the stub off and gave me the ticket back. After my friends got their stubs ripped off too, we bolted to the front, right in front of Daniel's mic.

People started to pile in and fill up the empty spaces around us. An hour later the opening band, Treble Charger took the stage. Treble Charger is a great Canadian band, definitely worthy of opening up for silverchair. The lead singer said a few things into the mic and begun to play a song well known to the audience. The crowd responded excitedly to Treble Charger. A few rows behind me a huge mosh pit formed. In the middle of the last song the lead singer started to chant SIL-VER-CHAIR, SIL-VER-CHAIR, SIL-VER-CHAIR! This got the crowd really rowdy. Treble Charger then left the stage.

The lights went out. The whole crowd began to chant SIL-VER-CHAIR, SIL-VER-CHAIR, SIL-VER-CHAIR, just like the lead singer of Treble Charger. A man came on the stage and put insense on Daniel's amps and Chris' amps. He left, and about 15 minutes later silverchair came on the stage. The crowd screamed with excitment. Ben walked to his drum set, Chris walked across the stage and picked up his bass, and Daniel picked up his guitar, and walked over to the mic. Everyone was screaming "silverchair", "Daniel", "Chris", or "Ben". Without speaking, Daniel began the opening riff to Madman. This song is one of my favourites. Daniel was riffing hard on his Paul Reed Smith, which previously belonged to his guitar hero Page Hamilton. Near the end of the song Daniel did his famous grunt. The girls in the crowd (including me) screamed with delight. Under the light you could see the smile on Daniel's face. For he new the female persuasion of the crowd loved that famous grunt.

The next song, Leave Me Out, made the moshers rowdy. After the song, Daniel looked at my doll, then moved his eyes down to my eye level, smiled, and gave me a thumbs up sign!!! I couldn't believe it! The girl beside me grabbed my arm and yelled "You're so lucky!!!" I nodded in sheer numbness, still not believeing Daniel had done that.

The next song, Slave, rocked! Being a huge fan of Helmet, this song got me going. The riffs were powerful, the bass was pumping, and the drums were beating so loud you could feel it in your chest. A few songs later the first part of Tomorrow came out of Daniel's guitar. The crowd screamed so loud that you couldn't hear his guitar until the main riff.

All the other songs rocked too. After most of the songs Daniel whispered a couple "thank-yous." He also said a couple of things, but I couldn't hear him. The last song was Israel's Son. The beginning bass excited the crowd. At the end of the song they jammed for a couple minutes. They left the stage. The lights came on, and everyone left the stage area. We all bought drinks, and stood around for awhile. I didn't realize what I looked like, until I went to the washroom. My hair was sticking up like the bride of Frankenstein! My eyeliner was all around my eyes, like a racoon.

As we walked to my dads car, waiting outside, we talked excitedly about the concert. We got in the car. My two friends fell asleep in the back, but I was still excited I couldn't bat an eyelash. I took my ticket out of my pocket and looked at it like it was a winning lottery ticket worth 1 million dollars.