Los Angeles, Apr. 1, 1999

By KRISSI GRANT

It had been almost two years since the last time I saw silverchair live, in San Francisco. April 1st was my ninth (proud) time seeing them. And a great birthday present from fate... two days after my b'day. We got to the show just in time, literally. The crowd was different than I had seen before, it was a bit of an older crowd, except at the front, where all the younger girls were. We missed the first band, 3 Colours Red, and 10 minutes after we got to the House of Blues, silverchair came on.

They opened with Emotion Sickness. I always thought that song was just OK, but after reading reviews of other shows I noticed everyone was saying how amazing it sounded, and now I see what they were talking about. It was so beautiful, it brought tears to my eyes. It’d been so long since I’d seen them it just hit me really hard. We were still toward the back of the crowd, but when their next song, Israel’s Son, came on, we mad a mad rush for the front and got to the barricade with no problem whatsoever and had an awesome view of the stage.

Daniel wasn’t very talkative at first -- they just went through their set sounding absolutely amazing. After Israel’s Son they played Abuse Me, Slave, Ana’s Song, Suicidal Dream, Point of View, Paint Pastel Princess and so on. They have not lost their ability to put on an awesome show and sound so amazing.

About halfway through the set Daniel started talking a bit, asking Chris and Ben if their migranes went away, yelling it really loud, and both of them gave him a thumbs up. Then he started going off about raiding, and asking if L.A. raids and saying "Go Raiders!" (I’m like, hello, L.A. doesn’t have a football team any more!)

. Madman was a definite crowd pleaser and we got a cool solo version of Tomorrow. It’s really cool that they are still playing their old stuff, because a lot of bands that I listen to have seemed to neglect their old albums when they come out with their third album. But silverchair played a lot of their old stuff, actually more off of frogstomp than Freak Show. That made me happy. After Tomorrow was Miss You Love, which was awesome, but the girls behind me were singing so loud I couldn’t hear Daniel sing, which was annoying, but whatever. Then came The Door, Pure Massacre, Freak, and Anthem for the Year 2000, when Daniel had everyone chanting “we are the youth...” Then the guys left the stage.

Before the encore Ben came out and told everyone to “shuuuush” and asked everyone to yell “I love you Ben” while he videotaped it, that was pretty amusing. Then the other two came back out and they played Satin Sheets and ended with Spawn Again, which I totally was not expecting to hear since I thought they weren’t going to play it again since it hurt Daniel’s voice, but that was awesome live.

So thus the show ended and the night I’d been waiting for FOREVER was over. The show was just absolutely amazing and I walked away feeling this completeness, like something had been missing from my life for two years and I got it back. And I walked away with a set list too!

Set list:
Emotion Sickness
Israel's Son
Abuse Me
Slave
Ana's Song
Suicidal Dream
Point of View
Paint Pastel Princess
Madman
Tomorrow
Miss You Love
The Door
Pure Massacre
Freak
Anthem for the Year 2000
Satin Sheets
Spawn Again