Cincinnati, Apr. 22, 1997

By TARA KELLEY

My sister and I got out of school early to make the trip from our town in Kentucky to Ohio, and we got there around 3:00. For some reason, we didn't go behind Bogart's to meet the guys from each band -- actually, I wanted to, but my sister was hungry! We walked around the town until about 6:00, and at that time a line was starting to form outside of the doors.

While waiting directly in front of the doors, we listened to a group of girls who were debating on who was cuter in person, Daniel or Chris. Me, being the nice person I am, confronted the girls. "Are you here for the music or the guys?" I asked. "The guys!" What teenies! A few minutes later, silverchair began a sound check and the girls who were beside us started screaming. "They're gonna open the doors!" I knew they weren't.

After looking at our watches for an hour, and then waiting 15 minutes after the doors were suppose to open, they opened. I gave our tickets to the bouncers, and I was expecting some sort of check for weapons, but there was nothing. I didn't care though. My sister and I ran inside.

Greeted by a large cloud of smoke, we ran toward the stage. To my surprise, the venue was extreamly small. But that was better for us, I guess. When we got to the bar in front of the stage, there were already people in there who had came in through the other set of doors. There, we waited for a really long time for the first band to come on. We did get to listen to some music while we waited though -- AC/DC, Beastie Boys, and such.

Finally, Handsome came on stage. Right off, the crowd started moshing. It didn't take long for the place to get extremely hot, but that was one of the greatest parts. Everyone started taking off their clothes, and jumping and yelling louder than before. During a song, Jeremy Chatelain of Handsome opened a bottle of water, guzzled half of it and threw the rest onto the crowd. Then, he spat the water he had in his mouth out into the crowd, most of which landed on my face, but it felt great compared to the temperature which was climbing. Then, their set was over.

As the roadies were getting the stage ready for Local H, my sister and I went to get drinks. I was dying of thirst! We decided to watch Local H from the bar, and that's where we stayed for a while. We attempted to buy posters, but by the time I could get my money out of my pocket, they were all gone.

Local H played a great set. The highlights were Eddie Vedder, and High Fivin' Motherfucker. I had wanted to go back out into the mosh pit, but my sister was "too tired," so I went with a guy named Robby. On our way back to the front of the crowd, a big fight broke out, and we walked right in the middle of it. I got slapped by some large fat guy, and Robby kept fighting for me after I slapped him back. Back up front, the crowd was swaying back and forth, and it was really hard to stand up.

Before leaving te stage, Local H thanked the crowd for all of the bras that were tossed on stage by the girls. Then came the long awaited break. During the break, the lead singer for Local H came on stage and told the crowd to sing happy birthday to Daniel after Findaway, and then he left.

I had managed to get back up front to the stage, and my sister was still back at the bar. She was missing everything. Now, in every review of silverchair concerts that I've ever read, they say something about "circus music." I heard no "circus music." I did see Daniel and Chris walk on stage and I did hear the opening chords to Slave though. As silverchair played Slave, some chubby girl next to me kept yelling at the top of her lungs, "I love you, Daniel" and when they began to play the next song, she was still screaming. Usually, I'm not a violent person, but this was really getting on my nerves, and I told her to stop, and she wouldn't, so I punched her in the nose, and she started crying and left. But back to silverchair.....

They played Findaway and the crowd wouldn't stop yelling to sing happy birthday, so the lead singer for Local H and all of Handsome came out and began to sing. Daniel was so embarrassed. He turned his back to the crowd until the song was over.

In between songs, Daniel tried to say some things, but everyone was yelling so loud that I couldn't make out what he was saying. During Tomorrow he changed the lyrics to "The water out of Cincinnatti is very hard to drink," and "You think you can keep on going living like a shlong" as he does in every concert.

Halfway during the set, they had a short break, during which, a majority of the crowd left, thinking the show was over, but as any loyal fan would know, it always ends with Israel's Son! So, they played a few more songs, and ended it off with Israel's Son, which is my FAVORITE song! They slowed it down as usual, and many people who didn't know they did that, were still singing fast. At the end of the song, Daniel proceeded to yell, "Put your fucking hands in the air!!", until everyone had their hands in the air. I think he yelled, "Now mosh like fuck!" But it was really hard to hear because of the crowd. Then, it was over, and Daniel thrashed his guitar around and jumped on the amps, then they left the stage.

I found my sister about 30 minutes later, and we went outside and around back. A roadie came to the back door and said the guys would be out in about 5 minutes, but we didn't get to wait 'cause my dad, quote, "wanted to get the hell home." And that was my night with silverchair! It was probably one of their better concerts too!

At about 6:00 we entered silverchair teritory. As we drove around looking for Bogart's we saw tons of people in silverchair shirts walking in the same direction we were driving. There were tons of people in line already. I was dropped of at the end of the line which was only a few shops down from the entrance to Bogart's, but to me (since I was giddy with the excitment of seeing them), it seemed like milions of miles away. At about 7 o'clock the doors finally opened and we made our way toward the venue.

As we walked in we were greeted by a large cloud of smoke. But I ignored that and proceeded to the stand where they were selling stuff. They were selling 3 silverchair T-shirts: A maroon one with the guy covered in tattoos (which I already had), a grey one that said either Freak or Freak Show (my boyfriend bought this one, and he's gonna let me borrow it), and a navy blue one with the cover of Freak Show on it and the places of their tour on the back (this is the one I bought). They were also selling a silverchair poster of the three members (which I also bought), green silverchair beanies, two Local H T-shirts and a Local H CD. I don't know of anything else they were selling since I was only interested in the silverchair items. We then took our seats.

At exactly 8:00 Handsome came on. They totally rocked. I thought they were a really great band to have opening up. They went off some time before 9:00 because that's when Local H came on. I thought Local H was okay, but I do think that silverchair could have gotten a much better band to open up for them. Although their last song, High Fivin' Motherfucker was pretty good. Since both opening acts came on exactly on the hour I figured silverchair would do the same. So, naturally I went crazy when they didn't. But I was relived of this at exactly 10:18 when the lights dimmed and circus music began to play.

I could only see three silhouettes walk out on to the stage, and then, the bright orange, yellow and white lights flashed on the stage, flooding the entire stage in light, to the opening power chords to Slave. Then after a few moments of darkness and silence, the second set of chords were played until the song got underway and the mosh pit began moshing. After Slave they played Roses and then Findaway. In my glee of seeing them again (I saw them last on December 3, 1995) I lost track of the order of the songs they played. On Freak, eight giant heater lamps (from the video) were turned on. They stayed on throughout this song and throughout Pure Massacre. During Tomorrow, Daniel substituted the lyrics "the water out of tap is very hard to drink" with "the water in Cincinnati is very hard to drink." I'm sure he's done this at every concert but I thought that was clever, and true. He screamed "fuck!" right before he played Cemetery, which he played by himself.

After all this they left the stage at about 11:15 and came back on a moment later to play two songs. The first one I can't recall what it was but the second was Israel's Son. But this encore was like no other concert on this tour. You see, April 22 was a special day -- specifically, Daniel's birthday. Just as Daniel started to play Israel's Son, the dude from Local H came out and asked us to sing happy birthday to Daniel, which everyone at this sold-out show proceeded to do. Afterward Daniel thanked us and continued with the concert. After it was through he thanked everyone for coming and the concert was over. As we left I saw their bus behind the venue and I watched them drift by as we drove away and I silently said thank you and good-bye.