Asbury
Park, Apr. 30, 1997
Review
by Mike Stramaglio (RYZA36A@prodigy.com)
[Photos
by Jenna O'Brien]
 Justin,
Jeremy K., Jeremy D., Rich, Pete L., and myself (wow 6 MALE
silverchair fans from the same town! :) all hopped out of
the van at around 6:30, an hour before the show was to start.
A brisk wind from the nearby ocean made the majority of the
small line that had formed shiver as we waited for, god knows
what reason, the Stone Pony people to let us in one by one.
While we waited forever in line we noticed Gabe walk by, and,
since he knew me from my web page and the previous night when
I met him, we spoke with him a couple minutes. He then walked
away and we resumed the former position of freezing our asses
off in line. We figured it was taking so long because they
were searching people.
Right
before we walked in I looked to the side of the building and
saw Pete Walton walking through the side entrance, ushering
in (I suppose) silverchair, who had been chatting at Pete's
house (on-line).
 As
we walked through the small entrance of the Stone Pony we
were shocked. The actual venue was hardly larger than my basement,
if that. The darkened bar made it difficult to see but I did
notice a tall person approaching me. It was Pete Walton, and
we spoke with him briefly before we took a position at the
back of the crowd that had already formed in front of the
stage. As I was chatting with my friends I felt something
flick my ear and turned around to find Mike Amburn! We spoke
with Mike for a while, telling us some rather cool silverchair
information (like Daniel's awesome performance of "Abuse
Me" during sound check), but he disappeared by the time
Automatic had taken stage. We desperately tried to get closer
to the stage (although the farthest point from the stage is
probably around 50 feet) but no one would budge.
Automatic
took the stage, a little later then planned (8pm, I'm guessing),
and played a quick set. By this time we had managed to move
pretty close to the stage but the way it was set up made it
difficult to see the band. As if it weren't bad enough that
I couldn't move and/or see but on top of that an extremely
*obese* woman next to me kept swing her hips and forcing the
ENTIRE pit to move because of her perturbations. The crowd
received the pop/light punk sounds of Automatic pretty well
but I did not like them at all. All of my friends thought
they weren't that bad, or that they were actually pretty good,
but it just sounded like any other re-hashed current pop/grunge/punk
band.
 By
the time Local H had reached the mid-point of "Fritz's
Corner," I had taken a big move backwards as a result
of the moshing. I was still only about 10 feet from the band
but didn't have a very good view. The mosh pit was pretty
rough and Local H had incited the first crowd surfers, which
had shocked me that anyone would be crazy enough to do it
in such a small place (like I later did :). The ceiling was
so low that people were hanging from lights and pipes that
were attached to the ceiling. At one point my friends, who
were still up in front, started a chant for Joe Daniels, Local
H's drummer.
When Local
H finished the song Joe got up to the mic and said "Who's
Joe? My name's tinkerbell," allegedly. I didn't actually
hear that. Scott then said "Joe just told me a joke but
I don't have time to tell it right now." Local H quickly
finished their set (I assume someone told Scott to rush since
they had a late start) and when they were finished Scott shook
hands with everyone in the front.
Gabe did
his usual on-stage antics...singing, tambourine, etc. The
crowd seemed to really like Local H. My friend Pete L. had
told me he never heard Local H sound so good.
 The
circus music finally began and the trio emerged. All were
wearing the same thing the had been the previous night: Daniel's
yellow t and khakis, Chris's blue Split shirt with the bottle
on it, and a shirtless Ben. Daniel picked up his green PRS
and ripped through the opening chords of "Slave"
and halted, the lights went off.
They did
the next four chords, lights off, and did it the final time
until Daniel began the solo/intro lick he plays. Daniel seemed
agitated while he played and had a distant look in his eyes.
By this time the pit was in full swing and crowd surfers were
crashing over the barrier like waves at the Pipeline. When
surfers were caught by the security guards and placed over
the barrier they were inches away from the 'Chair! After "Slave"
they went into a smooth, average version of "Roses."
Daniel did the same "rock star" pose when he clutched
mic. for the bass verse. They then went into an up-beat version
of "Findaway" and finally started to work into a
groove. Daniel seemed to be getting more into it and when
someone threw a bra on stage he placed it on his head for
half the song! After a great version of "Findaway"
Daniel grabbed his beautiful PRS and began the warbly notes
to "Abuse Me." They played the usual version of
this, again with Daniel rising in pitch for the final chorus
when he sang. Daniel introduced Bailey as "the guy from
Black Sabbath.
Right
after this song some girl near me was saying "Oh my god
I wanna fuck him he's so hot." A second later you hear
some guy yell "Hell I'D even fuck him!" That had
to be the most hysterical moment of the night! After "Abuse
Me" they played an ok version of "Pure Massacre"
which caused the pit to consume more and more of the innocent
bystanders because of the sheer intensity of this song...all
this despite the fact that it was performed only a little
better than average.
 After
"Pure Massacre" Daniel switched to his red standard-tuned
PRS and played a really good version of "Cemetery"
which held the crowd in awe. I took advantage of the then
stupefied state of the crowd to escape the un-relenting pit
that had finally ceased and got a drink. Following "Cemetery"
the remaining 2/3 of silverchair returned and they played
awesome versions of "Suicidal" and "Tomorrow."
Daniel did his usual alterations of the "Tomorrow"
lyrics..."The water in New Jersey is..." and "you
think you can keep on going living like a slut!"
It was
also around this time that Daniel took it upon himself to
chat a lot. Most of what he had said between songs was unintelligible
mumblings so I honestly couldn't tell you what he said.
I did
manage to decipher when he said "New Jersey is good for
cultivating basil" like he had said in New York the previous
night. During one of Daniel's rants some guy said "You
don't know what the fuck you're talking about" so Daniel
said "I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about so
I'll shut up now." After "Tomorrow" Daniel
went back to his green PRS and began "The Door."
Daniel was really starting to get into the song and the pit
had seemed to turn up a couple notches. Despite the venues
small size and low ceiling, I couldn't resist the urge of
crowd-surfing any longer. I finally got someone's help to
hoist me up and floated on the crowd. After the guards had
caught me and placed me down I paused to watch Daniel in mid-song,
screaming. I thought to myself how ironic it was that I should
be that close to him and have contributed so much time towards
promoting the band and he had no idea...I was just another
crowd surfer to them.
I quickly
crossed beneath the yellow tape and returned back to my spot
in the pit. After that song I crowd surfed so many times I
lost count... and wasn't dropped once (well...I'm only like
120 lbs, anyway). After an awesome, adrenaline-packed version
of "The Door" they played "Faultline."
silverchair seemed to be getting into each song more and more,
feeding off the energy of the exuberant crowd. "Faultline"
was normal as far as structure goes, but was awesome. They
did the usual "Helmet" type ending and right before
it ended some crowd surfer had smashed his head on the ground
when a guard failed to catch him. Supposedly there was a pool
of blood and he was carried away but I couldn't see. Daniel
asked the crowd to move back so they can get the guy and tells
the crowd they don't do requests. Daniel then stalled a little
more by improvising a song about masturbation that goes like
this (thanks to Mike Amburn for transcribing this!):
sometimes
when I'm lonely
I like to pull my own dick
because I'm so bored
I like to lift up my stick
oh baby, I love to masturbate
it's real great
I like to make it inflate
yeah
The crowd
laughed it up and some guy said "Yeah so do I!"
After the whole crowd surfer incident they played an awesome
version of "No Association." I keep replaying this
one image in my head of Daniel during this song...between
verses for a palm mute he strummed his guitar in the manner
someone loaded a shot gun. The evil look on his face made
it look so awesome when he did this...with the dripping make-up
coming down his face and the lighting...it was so cool! Wish
my friend hadn't wasted all my film during "Slave"!
Following "No Association" they played one of the
best versions of "Freak" I've heard (well...at least
it seemed that way. I can't recall for sure since I crowd-surfed
like five times during this song). Of course, they didn't
have the usual "oven" lighting since it couldn't
fit in the tiny venue, but nevertheless it still kicked ass.
The crowd
was really revved now and it seemed that everyone had at one
time or another crowd surfed. The interaction between silverchair
and the crowd was amazing! The energy of the pit seemed to
be driving silverchair to play each song more intense then
the last! After "Freak" they played a usual version
of "Madman" and skipped the "Minor Threat"
encore...presumably because Jeremy wasn't their to do sing
but I heard they did it somewhere else without Jeremy. I know
that Daniel used to sing it when they covered it...I wonder
why he didn't that night? Anyway, Daniel switched back to
his silver PRS and they played an awesome version of "Israel's
Son." Jeremy Deeks crowd-surfed so many times during
this song it was unbelievable. Seemed every time I hoisted
him up he was back in less then a second.
The song
ended with Daniel screaming "Fuck You!" which incited
the crowd to start a "fuck! you! fuck! you!" chant
which could even be heard outside, according to Justin's father.
Here's
silverchair's set list (same as previous night, minus "Minor
Threat"):
[green
PRS]
Slave
Roses
Findaway
[silver PRS]
Abuse Me
Pure Massacre
[red/orange PRS]
Cemetery
Suicidal Dream
Tomorrow
[green PRS]
The Door
Faultline
No Association
Freak
Madman
---Encore:
[Silver PRS]
Israel's Son
The song
ended with Daniel screaming "Fuck You!" which incited
the crowd to start a "fuck! you! fuck! you!" chant
which could even be heard outside, according to Justin's father.
After
the show we bid our good-byes to Pete, Laura, and Mike Amburn
and left the trashed venue. All in all the show was one of
the best I've seen (and that's compared to 3 previous sc shows,
Tool, KoRn, etc). My initial impression was that the Stone
Pony was a hole in the wall dump but after the crowd started
to get into it I realized that the smaller the venue (no matter
how small) the better! Everyone seemed to be within grasp
of silverchair!
The crowd
didn't seem to harbor many teeny boppers and was really psyched,
which Daniel fed off well! The show was quicker than the previous
night, but, in my opinion, better! |
