Silverchair - Reports from the Road

Brussels, Apr. 11, 1999

Set list:

Emotion Sickness
Israel's son
Slave
Abuse me
Pure Massacre
Ana's Song (Open Fire)
Suicidal Dream
Dearest Helpless
Point Of View
Paint Pastel Princess
Madman
Tomorrow
Miss you Love
The Door
Freak
Anthem For The Year 2000
No Association

By YURI

When my girlfriend Mirella and I got to the club, there were about 50 people gathered in front of the little club. We asked for the tickets, and got inside the club. "Wow! This is a really small club," I said to my girlfriend. It was! When the doors of the concert hall opened, we could easily get a place in one of the front rows. We saw silverchair one week earlier on German television, and were excited to finally see them live ourselves!

First we had a rocking show from the support band Fuel 238. They played really well, and I probably will buy their album soon!

After this, the stage got prepared for the "silver-show," and when the lights went out, the amps, drums, and microphone stand, were lightened up with some cool "neon" lights!

After some shouting from the crowd, the "Taxi Driver" intro tape finally began, and silverchair walked up the stage! Cool! The band started with a moving version of "Emotion Sickness," and I could feel shivers all over me!! After this, they played "Israel's Son," and the crowd went really wild!! Then Daniel picked up his other guitar, and started to play "Slave," one of my favourites. The song got cooler every minute, and by the end of it, I was really freaking out!

After Slavethey played Abuse me, and the guitar solo was changed to a keyboard solo. I belive that during this song, Daniel cut his finger open on one of his guitar strings, and it was bleeding quite a lot! So, every now and then he looked at his finger. But, they played on and "Pure Massacre" came up next. I think this is a song that is very good in place, because of the situation in Kosovo, Yugoslavia. "There are people dying…there are people crying…" the song impressed me a lot.

Daniel was still looking at his finger, and after the song he said: "I cut my finger, and it's bleeding...I've got blood all over my pick...yeah Brussels...I'm suffering for you!". He introduced the next song "Ana's Song (Open Fire)," and I thought it was beautiful.

The band played "Suicidal Dream," "Dearest Helpless," and "Point Of View," and they were all rocking! Everybody had a great time! "Paint Pastel Princess" was next, and after this, a very cool version of "Madman" made us freak out! Daniel went over to Chris and freaked out together. It really rocked!!!

"Tomorrow" was played by Daniel, and it was very nice…it's a very cool song. "Miss you love" and "The Door" were next in line… After this, the band played Freak, and Daniel was really freaking out when he did his guitar solo…he layed down on the floor, and scrumbled up to sing the end of the song! Every fan was freaking!

"We are the youth…We are the youth…WE ARE THE YOUTH!" Daniel screamed, followed by the crowd. I think we all felt like we could save the world at that time! The last song was "No Association" and I gave everything I had to freak out. It was so damn rocking!! And then, without saying one single word, silverchair left, and didn't came back…The concert was over, but it was one of the best shows I have ever seen!

By GERALDINE WOJCIK

I live in France, 100 km away from Brussels. I had never seen silverchair live before but I had been waiting for that moment for more than 3 years, so my parents took me to Brussels because they knew how important it was to me.

I got to the concert hall at 6:30, there were about 50 people waiting in front of it. It reassured me when I saw that they were all 16, 17, 18 or even much older, because I read that there were very young girls in Glasgow. We got in the building at 7:15, so we could hear the support band, Fuel 238, rehearse. We got in the concert hall at 7:40, I ended up in the front row, just in front of the place where Daniel would sing.

Fuel 238 appeared at 8:00. Their music was excellent. They played several songs, then the singer said it was their first concert in Belgium and that we were a great crowd. Next they played 2 or 3 songs and the singer said "Our last song is coming up, we know you are waiting for silverchair," but the crowd was so excited that the guys really enjoyed themsleves and played 3 or 4 more songs. People around me were jumping up and down with excitement. I started to feel very bad because I couldn't breathe any more. Then the band left the stage and several guys took their drums away and tested the mics.

About 20 minutes later, the lights went down and neon tubes lit up around the amps, the stand of the mic and Ben's bass drum. Everyone began screaming "silverchair! silverchair! silverchair!". We heard an extract of "Taxi Driver" ("Are you talking to me?") and then Daniel came first, followed by Chris, Ben and Sam.

As per usual, Chris was in a t-shirt and baggy shorts and Ben was bare-chested. I thought that Daniel would be wearing a maroon pullover just like he was when he appeared on French TV last week and in Germany, but I was wrong, he was wearing a black shirt with a silver tie. I expected to see Sam with long hair but he had short streaked hair, it suited him very well. Daniel was just in front of me so I could take some pictures very closely. Then I looked at Chris, and I has a strange feeling. I'm so used to seeing him on TV that it was as if I met a friend in the street.

The band started playing "Emotion Sickness" very slowly but it speeded up after a short while. I sounded really good. People around me started to jump, and I felt so bad that I thought I'd die so I had to go to the back of the hall (fortunately, it wasn't very big!). There were sound engineers surrounded with fences in the middle of the hall. I sat on a fence, the cameraman let me take some photos before he told me I was in the shot. I went to the very back of the hall and asked people who were standing on chairs and tables to take some pictures for me.

Then I moved forward and sat on another fence near a sound engineer just when the band started to play "Israel's Son." I could see the whole stage very very well, it was excellent! Daniel kept making gestures with his arms, it reminded me of Madonna's video "Frozen." I really enjoyed that song, especially it's one of my favourite ones. Just after "Israel's Son," they played "Slave" and "Abuse Me."

Then Daniel said a whole sentence for the first time since the beginning of the gig (he only said the title of each song before): "Fuck off Belgium! This is one of our new songs, "Ana's Song!" It was really cool. Daniel really lived the lyrics while singing them. Next he had a wicked time : he let off steam playing the guitar and singing very quickly (I could only understand "get down"), and he really communicated with us for the first time:

Daniel: "Do you know where we are?"
Crowd: "Yeah!"
Daniel: "Do you know where we are?"
Crowd: "YEAH!"
Daniel: "We are in Belgium... We love Belgium... Do you know why? Because Belgium is the most Belgian country in the map!"

Then came "Suicidal Dream," "Dearest Helpless" and "Paint Pastel Princess" (I love it!), which was awesome.

Next Daniel screamed: "Can I get a Hallelujah?"
The crowd : "Yeah!" (I screamed "Hallelujah" but all the others screamed "Yeah" so I wondered who was wrong)
Daniel : "Can I get a Hallelujah?"
The crowd : "Hallelujah!"
Daniel : "Can I get a Hallelujah?"
The crowd : "Hallelujah!"
Daniel : "Can I get a Hallelujah?"
The crowd : "Hallelujah!"
Daniel : "Can I get a Hallelujah?"
The crowd : "Hallelujah!"
Daniel : "CAN I GET A HALLE FUCKING LUJAH????????"
The crowd : "HALLELUJAH!"

They carried on with "Madman." While playing it with just one hand, Daniel made gestures just like during "Israel's Son" and "Paint Pastel Princess," as if he was blessing us.

Sam, Ben and Chris left the stage and just after, Daniel said: "Do you know that song?" before playing an extremely cool solo version of "Tomorrow."

The guys came back and played "Miss You Love," "The Door" and "Pure Massacre." Next Daniel said "You're the best crowd in this fucking world" and I think he was right, the crowd was really excellent. He carried on with "Europe is very good at football... We know you, you know us, you are football, we are chairs!"

The end of the gig was drawing near. After a magic and powerful "Freak" during which everyone was singing along with Daniel. The last song was "Anthem For The Year 2000." Daniel had us chanting "We are the youth" about 10 or 15 times and he went on with "We'll take your fascism away."

It was really impressing to see so many people chant "We are the youth," it was just as if that song had become the youth anthem. Daniel gave us the finger when he sang "The politicians are so sure" and "Never knew we were living in a world with a mind that could be so sure." Some people (just like me) raised their fists during the chorus, like in a demonstration and in the video. First everyone looked at me, I didn't care and they all started doing the same.

The guys left the stage. We all screamed : "silverchair! silverchair! silverchair!" and we sang the chorus of "Anthem For The Year 2000." silverchair came back to sing "No Association." I didn't recognize it at the beginning because they made some changes to it, but it was really cool. They left the stage at the end and the lights came on.

It was really an excellent gig. I think the guys really enjoyed themselves. It was the first time I saw them live, hopefully it wasn't the last one!

My dream has become reality. THANK YOU GUYS!

Back to the 1999 Road Reports