Chicago, Sep. 6, 1997

Review by by NATE LICHTMAN

I arrived at the World Music Theatre at about 12:30 and already a large group of people had assembled for what looked like a massive festival. It was 20 bands, 3 stages and 10 hours of pure rock and roll, no techno, just rock. I had come from Michigan to see the show and was very excited to get one last chance to see Silverchair before they headed back to Australia to close out the Freak Show phase of their careers. There were several great performances throughout the day from Local H, Veruca salt, and Helmet. Silverchair elected to play the second stage so that instead of playing to a sea of blue plastic chairs they could see people jumping up and down and having fun. Let me just say right now that if anyone has their doubts about this band, then DON'T because the band literally stole the show from all 20 bands at Rockstock.

The second stage area was a big chunk of the parking lot and by the time that silverchair came on at 7:40 p.m. the whole area was overflowing with people chanting "silverchair" at the tops of their lungs. The local DJ announced the band was coming up, got off the stage and then in complete darkness we were treated to a hip hop song with people chanting and then Daniel, Ben and Chris took the stage. I was expecting to hear the opening chords of Slave but that didn't happen. Instead I heard the opening riff to Madman and as soon as this song started going, a large and rough pit had started. There were many crowd surfers who were getting injured because they would get dropped onto the concrete. Madman was played to perfection and the whole band was really getting into it all night. Daniel was very talkative and made some great remarks. After Madman the band launched into a great version of Freak and at the "body and soul" part the band stopped and Daniel and the crowd sung together. After Freak Daniel announced Bailey Holloway as Tommy Iommi and the band went into a great performance of Abuse Me. Before the chorus Daniel screamed for every mother fucker to jump. It was great.

After Abuse Me Daniel said that he had been informed to tell everyone to calm down because people were getting hurt and then he mocked the crowd who began to get upset by saying "yeah, just go ahead and mosh...KILL!!" It was funny. The band then went into another perfect performance with Pure Massacre and Daniel really got into this as did Chris. Then after this Daniel once again told us to calm down and move a step back and to create an atmosphere of love by kissing the person next to you and masturbating if you wanted. Another funny comment. Then he said that "this is our number 1 grunge hit" and they played Tomorrow. He changed the lyrics to "you think you can keep on goin' living like a hot shit fuck" and "the water in Chicago is very hard to drink". Also Daniel played the whole Tomorrow solo like it is on the record, not the usual improv thing he's done.

When Tomorrow was over, Daniel asked the crowd how all of us homeboys were and commanded the crowd to give him a hallelujah. The crowd thought this was great. The Door was next and was really good live. Then Daniel talked about "being a homeboy in the hood" and started No Association which was killer, a great live song. Then he said "the next song is about hate" and started playing something that I had no idea what it was and then quickly realized that it was Spawn which totally rocked. Chris's bass solo in this song was unbelievable and Ben had some great drums in this. Ben was flawless all night and Chris really seemed to get into it a lot more than the previous times I had seen him.

After Spawn the band immediately went into Israel's Son. Chris's bass line was great again and they played the standard five minute version of this. It was great and at the end the band made a lot of noise and Daniel ran around the stage screaming random lines and just breathing heavy and then he walked off with the rest of the band. It was an amazing performance. It was a great farewell performance for the Freak Show phase in North America. The band was in perfect form, was really energetic, talkative and played amazing. The crowd went nuts for them and was sorry to see them go. I just wish they could have played longer.

Set time: 40 minutes

Set List:
Madman
Freak
Abuse Me
Pure Massacre
Tomorrow
The Door
No Association
Spawn
Israel's Son

I was fortunate enough to get Daniel's set list which was nice. silverchair is just amazing live. I can't wait till they come back with the new album. Everyone in Australia should be looking forward to the return of the band for the Summer Freak Shows!!!!!!