Sydney (Surf, Skate, Slam), Apr. 5, 1997

SURF SKATE SLAM
Maroubra Beach, NSW.

Surf Skate Slam was a festival not just dedicated to bands, other activities such as markets and surfing/skating competitions were held. silverchair were headlining, out of a selection of Australian bands, including Nitocris and Frenzal Rhomb.

The event started at midday, the gates opened and naturally the crowd bolted towards the stage, hours later at about 7pm, silverchair eventually made it towards the stage. At this point in time, I think it was the first time most of the audience had seen Ben's new haircut. He pretty much got starred at for the first couple of songs.

The atmosphere of the set was really dark. The mosh pit was fairly rough. The concert was close after the release of Freak Show, the crowd seemed to appericate the newer songs to the old.

Through out the night Daniel nearly got raped by two different girls, one ripped about 3 strings off his guitar.

The quality of sound was outstanding, the bass was pumping and the crowd was happily bouncing around. The most popular song of the night had to have been "Freak" hence, it was the newest released single at that time. The crowd sung every word.

When it came to Daniel's solo performance of "Cemetery", people threw things at him, which I found totally unnecessary. Cemetery was my personal favourite of the night, it has more meaning performmed on its own.

The set finished at about 8:45pm, and silverchair traditionally did they final run around that stage. :)

At the end of night, I was covered in dirt, my head was sore from being kicked by crowd surfers, and I was sore from being pushed into the barrier, other than that I really enjoyed my day.

Rating: 8½ / 10