By OLLY SHARWOOD
What started out as a normal week turned into
something a very long way out of the ordinary. Friday rolled
around, the day was a little gloomy and overcast, but the
sun eventually came out, as it always does in Queensland,
the sunshine state of Australia.
Friday the 4th of October, silverchair is
IN BRISBANE, for the first time since May '95 and I just wanna
see them. My bank balance, credit card and overdue loan payment
tell me otherwise -- there is NO way I can go and see them
at all. To console me, I put on Frogstomp loud, on random
play. With no one else home, I just turned it waaaaay up,
logged on to the net, checked my mail, read some posts and
some Melbourne show reviews. Somewhere in the middle, I had
to stop for a few minutes, as Madman made me mosh hard, on
my own. But hell, I didn't stop moshing for the whole song.
I had to sit and calm down a bit, as my head was spinning
quite heavily. It felt good to let go of the anger that I
wasn't going to see them... the CD started on Israel's Son,
and finished on Pure Massacre around 3:45 p.m. It dawned on
me to go down to Festival Hall in the city, and see if I could
catch a glimpse of the band.
Already, at 4:15 p.m., and there were about
50 teenagers, mostly girls, waiting around the various entrances
to the stadium (these would be on the rail in the mosh pit).
I went to the stage door and hung around for a few minutes,
listening to Bodyjar doing their soundcheck. While I was waiting,
I shook off my inhibitions and asked the security guard for
the whereabouts of Susan Robertson, the band's marketing/promotions
manager with murmur, someone I've chatted to on and off for
the past year. It took several explanations of who she was,
and who I was, to the dumbfounded guy before he said, "Ask
these guys," as a few older official guys walked in.
I have a feeling one was John Watson, but I don't know what
he looks like.
One said, "Here she is," and sure
enough she was walking up the ramp to the door with a pile
of envelopes in her hand. We briefly said hi, how's it going,
before she had to take the envelopes off to the ticket office.
When she got back, we had a slightly longer chat (five minutes)
and out of this, it was clear she would have liked to, but
was unable to allow me to enter any further. It wasn't her
authority to do so. However, she did offer me some free tickets,
and told me to come back after the gig! That was enough! My
heart was racing. She was very busy, as the 'chair were about
to start their soundcheck. I had my trusty tape recorder in
case I could go in and tape the soundcheck, but alas, it was
now closing in on 5 p.m. and I had to get to work by 5:45.
Damn Pizza Hut! But it didn't matter -- I was now happy, complete,
so fucking excited -- too excited to comprehend that the tickets
were in the second row of seats!
 I
got to the car and rushed as fast I could to gasp out the
news to my friend Annie: "We're going to see silverchair!"
I rushed around at work, almost having accidents, stereo pumping
(I drive for work), I couldn't wait to finish. I left at 8
p.m. and picked up Annie. We got into the city around 8:45
p.m. Neither of us had eaten, so we headed to Johnny Rockets
for an American feast. We cruised off to Festival Hall at
9:15 p.m., sat down, had a cigarette, and took in the view
-- WOW! Susie, you are the best! Here we were, second row
of seats, right in front of the stage, on the balcony above
the huge floor area mosh pit, about 25 metres from the back
-- and no screaming people around us. Right on 9:30 p.m.,
the lights dimmed, three shadows emerged, a few chords and
flashes of light, and silverchair rocked into Leave Me Out.
The mosh was going hard, and there were several crowdsurfers.
The lighting display was brilliant, matching the heavy beat
and slow parts of the song, and didn't let up the whole show.
Fifteen minutes and three more tracks later (without stopping),
I looked to the side of stage and spotted Susie with a Handycam
video recorder.
During Slave, the second track, things started
going astray for Chris. Every so often he was over by his
amp, trying to adjust it. During these four songs, there was
non-stop moshing and screaming. The crowdsurfers were being
pulled out by security and taken outside to the sin bin to
calm down for a song before they were let back in. It didn't
matter -- they kept on surfing the whole show.
Findaway followed, and then Freak... how could
the mosh possibly stop during those! Especially not with Daniel
and Chris running and jumping all around the stage encouraging
them! After this, Daniel thanked the crowd for coming, and
told them to just keep rocking, and doing whatever they were
doing. He then let everyone know the next song was not new,
and started into Suicidal Dream. It was just a brilliant version
of the song, and was slower, and distinctly lacking in the
bass, which was not Chris's fault. It sounded very much like
an acoustic version; it was very cool!
Chris and Ben then walked off the stage, and
Daniel said they were going to get a drink, and he'd play
a new song 'til they got back. In the spotlight, he worked
his way through Cemetery with some amazing solo pieces of
guitar music in the middle. It was brilliant, quiet and reflective...
and KICK ARSE! Ben and Chris made their way back, and Daniel
introduced the next song as a pop song for rejects. The mosh
never let up during this song either, and it rocked the house
down, particularly with bass on only half the song. Without
a single break in notes, they continued into Tomorrow. The
lighters went up initially, until the chorus mosh set in,
and the crowd went crazy. Between singing, moshing, lights,
jumping on stage, and guitar bits, the house came down during
it. After the verses, there was some brilliant playing in
between choruses to the end. What impressed me so much was
the professionalism shown in this track. Though they have
attempted to play down the song, only seeming to play it because
"they have to" and "it's expected", tonight,
they had matured and changed -- they just played it out and
seemed to really enjoy it, as did the crowd.
By this stage Chris's bass amp was stuffed.
During Pop Song, and Tomorrow, there was a sound guy out by
the amp the whole time. This created a memorable break in
the show, as Daniel and Ben decided to wait for Chris to get
it right before going on. Daniel gave the floor to Ben to
pound out some drums, and Daniel started to sing, "Everybody
in the house, yeah yeah yeah." This finished, and Daniel
said, "We're Everclear" and started to play a bit
of Heroin Girl. Chris still wasn't ready, so Daniel proclaimed
a "sing along" and Ben suggested Twinkle Twinkle
Little Star. Daniel couldn't hear him so he screamed into
the mike "Twinkle twinkle little star! Twinkle twinkle
fucking little star!" Daniel didn't understand still,
so Ben threw his sticks at him and jumped down from his kit,
and told him in his ear. He went back up and they played it
-- it was soooo funny. It ended with Ben down with Daniel,
singing as well, and Daniel proclaiming, "Yeah, rock
and roll!" It was fucking unbelievable! (However, let's
hope Ben never sings on future songs!)
After a minute more of Daniel talking to the
crowd, he then went, "Sixty-nine pounds of glory -- Ben
Gillies!" and Ben bashed the drums as loud as he possible
could.
Well, Chris was sorta ready by now but he
wasn't totally convinced about five minutes later. They rocked
into Madman and Daniel and Chris ran around the stage as fast
as they could, jumping and headbanging. The mosh did not stop
at any point, and the balcony crowd too started to mosh. This
song will never be dropped from setlists -- ever. They then
went into The Door, and even though no one in the crowd really
knew it, they stopped and listened, moshed a bit, grooved
a bit, and it ended with a very good impression on everyone.
They'll mosh in this the next time they hear it, for sure!
Chris' bass amp had stuffed up again, but
it was then fixed, and Daniel said the microphone kept stuffing
up too. Then the highlight of the night for me: Faultline.
It was introduced as follows: "This next song is an old
song, it's for old people, over the age of six, and for people
under the age of six." It was the most awesome version
of this song that I had ever heard. It started slow, Daniel
getting into it, everyone was still quiet from The Door. The
first chorus was a semi-mosh. The second verse was reflective
and spot on, building up to the second mosh, and a great mosh.,
then the great musical bit in the middle, with half moshing,
half grooving, then the sudden stop and the rushed, hectic
mosh to the final verse, and then they rocked out a series
of notes, whilst jumping and running, finishing it, then slowly
starting it and creating a second wave of moshing as Daniel
screamed, "Fuck you," extending the song another
minute.
With that, the band paused for a bit. Daniel
told the crowd to "keep rocking" and they launched
into Pure Massacre, as slowly as possible, with the crowd
singing the first verse along with Daniel. They started the
music, and the song was a second highlight, with its power
in drumming, bass and lyrics keeping the crowd moshing for
the entire song, except when Daniel stops, as is customary,
to scream the last verse: "No one hears a sound..."
At this point I was sorry for anyone in the mosh, and glad
I chose seats instead of mosh tickets. They launched into
Israel's Son -- the start indicated this was an awesome version,
the initial lead-in bass notes featuring cool distortion and
twangs, and even though it didn't have the long section of
mosh music in the middle, like at their earlier '95 shows,
it was just as good, with a extended, hyperactive finish that
sent the mosh crazy, and a massive number of hands going up
at several points, with much screaming to go with them.
The crowd went crazy as they promptly left
the stage. The chant went up -- "silverchair, silverchair,
silverchair... encore, encore, encore..." The crowd waited
for about three minutes before the lights went out completely
and the band came back out, Daniel saying, "We're back,
we're going to play a punk song, we're not a punk band but
we're going to play it anyway 'cos it's fun... ready? Scream
as loud as you can if you're ready!" They then played
a cool cover song [Fix Me by Black Flag]. It was very difficult
to understand, being punk and all! Daniel then asked, "Does
anyone own a surfboard?" Remember, Brisbane is a city
which is one hour away from the Gold Coast to the south and
the Sunshine Coast to the north, which are both world-known
surfing locations. "Does anyone here go to the beach?
Does anyone here swim in the water? If you do any of those
things, you shouldn't shit or piss in the water. It sucks.
The next song is a surfing song, for all the surfing people."
Daniel then screamed out Surfin' Bird and the mosh went crazy
for the length of it, even though it was only about a minute
long. After this, Daniel said, "The next song we wrote
one time with Black Sabbath 'coz we're friends with them,
well, not really, but we wish we were, if we were, we woulda
wrote this song. This song is called Paranoid. This is the
last song and it rocks, so rock!" They launched into
a perfect cover of the song, and it did rock -- the mosh went
crazy, the seats rocked, the band ran everywhere, Daniel almost
smashed his guitar, but put it down and left a chord playing.
Chris almost threw his bass into the crowd, then almost smashed
it. Ben knocked his entire kit off his raised platform. Daniel
jumped off it onto the bass drum, then he and Ben ran around
the stage with cymbals and stands, tempting the crowd by faking
to throw them into it, and then at each other. Ben kicked
a stuffed toy -- a "surfin' bird" -- into the middle
of the mosh, then screamed into the microphone, "Twinkle
twinkle little star," and the band left. It was the funniest
site I've ever seen at a show, until the next day. |
One
of the highlights of the show at Festival Hall was a rare
appearance by drummer Ben Gillies on vocals.