I had never really been a big fan of silverchair, until I won an autographed copy of the CD single, 'Cemetery' and tour poster. I thought, 'I might as well go and see what the fuss is about', and by the end of the concert, I became a fan of the band forever...not to the point of obsession, but I do now own 'Frogstomp', 'Freak Show' and 'Neon Ballroom', as well as a vinyl copy of 'Neon' and the single 'Anthem for the Y2K', and a couple of other collector items. They're music is of an outstanding quality, and I wish them very best of success for future albums.

THE ENTRANCE:
Arriving half an hour before a silverchair concert was a good idea, but next time, I'm going a hell of a lot earlier. My best friends, Rachel, Nicole and I arrived to find a mass of try hards wearing anything and everything they could that they thought would attract the attention of...well, freaks. We lined up at the left gate as the door people came to the front. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE pushed there way to the gate to get through first. Then after waiting a couple of minutes to get let in, they said, 'Everyone has to go to the other gate'..'Fuckin' hell!', I shouted, and we all bolted to the other gate. It felt like I was getting crushed by a bunch of crazy elephants running for a peanut or something. We pushed and pushed and eventually I managed to slip through a gap in the elephants and got through the gate after about two minutes.

THE TEENY-BOPPER'S
I ran my ass off up the mound to see a bunch of back-pack, short sequence skirt, high heel shoe wearing, teeny-boppers lined up around the barrier. 'Fuck', I said, and shouted back to my friends to say, 'Hurry up!!!' I ran down to where the TB's were, and waited for my friends.

THE BANDS BEGAN TO PLAY
After a while, local Townsville band, 'Grandma's Toolbox' came on to play. I hadn't heard them before, but they were quite a good band. I thought to myself, 'Here's the next silverchair'. They got an excellent response from the crowd, which was slowly building up. Next came 'Magic Dirt', but as I like to call them, 'Magic Shit with a big nose'. They belted out some crap songs for a good half hour while I made my way out of the crowd to meet up with some other friends. I heard someone yell something to the lady behind the microphone (I don't like calling her the singer, because she can't). She yelled back something along the lines of 'Fuck you!', which I replied with, 'Get fucked you stupid bitch'. They continued to play their shitty rendition of 'Ice' which I was told by Rachel, sounded absolutely shit, and nothing like they way they originally played it. But I didn't care, because it was not long after that, I ran back into the crowd to get fired up for the band of the day, silverchair.

FINALLY, THEY CAME
The crowd chanted and chanted for silverchair to come out, but still no sign. Finally they came, after about half an hour of chanting because something screwed up and they needed to fix it. I was positioned directly in front of Daniel, in the second row. I had Nicole next to me, and a bunch of stupid thirteen and fourteen year old girls screaming for Daniel. Finally we got sick of it and told them to shut the fuck up or we'd smack them around. They shut up and continued chanting for silverchair-the group, not silverchair- Daniel Jonhs only.

THE MUSIC
The music was excellent. They played some of the old, some of the new and some that the audience hadn't even heard of. Two girls in front of me left to go crowd surfing, one of who had caught Ben Gillies drumstick. Rachel was fuming. I pushed through and managed to be in the front row, slightly off centre to Daniel. They kept belting out their music to a crowd who never gave up jumping. In the process, I managed to get my earring ripped out, but luckily I found it down my shirt later on. Daniel threw out a guitar pick which no one else saw. I screamed at the security guard lady, and asked for her to pick up the pick and give it to me. The stupid bitch picked it up, looked at me, then threw it into the audience, nowhere near me. I hurled some abuse at her, but the music drew me back.

They kept playing, until an interval where they went backstage to do whatever they do back there. I had to put up with crazy girls screaming in my ear for them to come back. I yelled back, 'Of course they're gonna come back, you fuckheads, so shut up and get the fuck off me', and pushed about five of them off my shoulders. silverchair returned to the stage for a second round. In the process, Daniel stopped to ask how we were and told us how we rock- something I'm sure he says at every gig to get a crowd reaction. He said, 'This next song is from a movie soundtrack'. Everyone kinda looked at him funny, and quieted down because they had no idea what the song was, but Rachel and I knew. 'SPAWN!!!', I shouted at the top of my lungs and Daniel looked down at me and smirked. They played 'Spawn', the song on the same titled movie soundtrack, which was originally mixed with Vitro. I was proud to be the only one up the front who knew the words, next to Rachel, whom I had no idea of her whereabouts. I sang it with pride, just as they did.

FINALE
They finished the gig with the remix of 'Freak', with Daniel jumping around the stage and over the speakers, no guitar in hand, and Ben standing, belting away at his bass drums. What an excellent way to end a concert that was heaps fun. By the end, I was covered in a fence shaped mud pattern from the water in front of the barriers, where the people had jumped down from crowd surfing. Rachel and I stuck around for the stage people to come on. We hassled them and hassled them for the set list, but nothing was retrieved. All in all though, we had a blast. A better time was had then when they first came to Townsville to play, and I managed to have my picture in the paper for it. silverchair concerts are a definite must on my schedule now. I'd go to see them play any day, anyway.