New
York, Nov. 13, 1999
Setlist:
 Israel's
Son
Emotion Sickness
Slave
Pure Massacre
Ana's Song
Kick Out The Jams
The Door
Freak
Anthem For The Year 2000
Roseland Ballroom
New York, New York
November 13, 1999
Review
and photos by ZACK HILL
On presumeably
their last visit to North America for some time, silverchair
find themselves opening for Blink 182. As unfortunate as it
is that the band is opening for an act of much less caliber,
we do have to respect the fact that this was Blink's tour
anyway. If it hadn't been for Blink's tour, silverchair wouldn't
have been back in the States this year. I take a fairly biased
view of the whole deal, as I am not a fan of Blink 182, as
you may have guessed. All complaints aside, silverchair, even
in their opening band role, performed to a level that really
showed their pure rock-out talent.
 First
opening act, Fenix TX, was off in no time after a set of only
30 minutes. The silverchair crew members made a quick transition,
and had the stage and equipment ready in short order. The
house lights went out, turning the venue dark. The neon tubes
around the band's equipment shined brightly, and the familiar
Taxi Driver theme came blasting out of the PA. Moments later,
cheers erupted from the throats of most of the people in attendence.
Chris, Ben, and Daniel made their way up a rickety looking
staircase at stage-left.
Chris
wasted no time, and immediately the distorted bassline to
Israel's Son went rumbling through the air. The guitar made
its entrance, as Daniel was standing directly in front of
and above me. He slammed out those palm-muted chords before
going into the song's main riff. The crowd continued to cheer
and be involved in the show. During the interlude in the song,
Daniel seemed to touch his chest sexually, drawing screams
from all the little girls, who had probably missed their Brownie-Scouts
meeting to come to this show.
 Emotion
Sickness came directly afterwards. Ben tapped his hi-hat four
times, and the band, accompanied by keyboardist Sam Holloway,
were off into the six minute opening track from their latest
album, Neon Ballroom. It's always a wonder to see this song
performed. If you think the recorded version is good, the
live version will just blow you away. The astonishing accuracy
of sound, along with the emotional intensity, make this track
more than amazing when performed live.
Still
no ever-enlightening words from Daniel, but by this point
he had fetched his green PRS that everyone likes so much,
and has seen with him for years. Again there were four taps
by Ben, but this time there was a much heavier result. The
powerful beginning to Slave seemed to shake the house, and
Daniel once again was standing right in front of me. He would
come back over to center-stage as he and Chris banged out
the heavy interlude. Chris, in particular, was bobbing and
really showing energy as he rocked out to the music.
The popular
frogstomp track, Pure Massacre, followed in normal fashion.
The only difference from their normal performance is that
the music paused for a moment as the soft opening riff came
to an end. We were then greeted with a growl from Daniel's
throat, commanding us to, "Get the fuck up!"
 Finally
our silverchair frontman spoke to us. It was a brief bit of
commentary, basically to introduce their next song. We all
knew it as their current single, Ana's Song. This song was
performed with traditional grace. The band seems to come together
well on this track. A powerful drum presence actually seems
to take an important role in the song. It seems to give it
extra backup, necessary to make it a moving song when played
live.
An MC5
cover song started to make its way into the 'chair's set while
they were last over in their homeland of Australia. Kick Out
the Jams is an upbeat track, and all members of the band seem
to enjoy playing it quite a bit. Sam adds a very cool touch
on keyboards. Before playing this song, however, Daniel apparently
succeeded at getting the crowd riled up. He declared it time
to rock and roll. He went on to enlighten us with more talk.
"We know you're all very fucking busy. We know you live
on a hectic schedule, 'cuz you live in New York, where everything
is very fucking hectic. But it's time...it's time. This isn't
time to chill. This isn't a fucking lounge room. This isn't
fucking Jerry Senifeld on the TV screen, motherfuckers. We're
ready for rock and roll. So did you come here to rock? Or
did you come here to feel yourselves, and watch three fucking
television stars talk crap? Did you come here to rock? Did
you come here to fucking rock!? New York, you fucking ready
to kick out the jams, motherfucker!" The song rocked.
What else can I say?
 Strapping
on the green PRS, Daniel once again returned to the microphone.
In one of the longer speeches I've seen from him, he thanked
all bands and parties involved in quite an interesting fashion.
He first started by conforming that New York could rock, "Believe
you me, we know rock and roll when we see it, because we play
it every goddamned motherfucking night......except for nights
off. Then, our manager has us doing interviews with important
press people." A joke drumbeat then followed by Ben.
Figuring
he had a newfound talent as a standup comic, Daniel continued.
"One day a whale met the beach. The whale said, 'Hey,
what's up?' The beach said, 'The tide, motherfucker, the tide.'
But wait, there's more. Does anyone here believe in Jesus?"
Shouts of "no" came rolling back from the crowd.
This babble is interesting every time Daniel does it, as he
finds a new twist to give it at every show. "Does anyone
here believe in the power of the Bible?" was his next
question. Again, screams of "no" erupted. Daniel
next told us that, "There's always one guy saying 'The
Bible fucking sucks, ma-...The Bible fucking sucks, motherfucker,
the Bible fucking sucks.' So does anyone here believe in the
power of Satan?" Large cheers came from the crowd.
The 'chair
frontman then got political, yet heavy sarcasm seemed to roll
through some of his speech. "We want to thank Blink 182
for letting us play on their stage. We also want to thank
ourselves for...playing. Also thanks to Fenix TX. They're
very cool and nice. We also want to thank our record company.
And we also want to thank our sponsors, Coca-Cola. And we
also want to thank anyone who has anything to do with the
huge upcoming career of this brilliant young band, silverchair,
Australian grunge trio." Just a bit of sarcasm in reference
to some of the early critic's claim that silverchair were
a grunge wannabe band. I thought the whole addition to thank
the record company and Coca-Cola was hilarious, as well.
 After
his little speech, he turned to finish what I knew was the
intro chatter to The Door, the band's fourth single from the
Freak Show album. "Can I get a hallelujah!?" Screams
from the crowd. "Can I get a hallelujah!?" More
screams. "Can I get a halle-fucking-lujah!? Yeah!"
Then he again commanded all of us to, "Get the fuck up!"
The concert
finished off with the first singles from their last two albums,
Freak and Anthem for the Year 2000. During Freak, Daniel belted
out a wretched growl for half of the second verse. Anthem
finished off the show. A few things were thrown into the song.
For instance, a line in the first verse, "We are the
youth, and politicians suck my dick." Before the second
verse started, good ol' Mr. Johns was strutting across the
stage, somewhat reminiscent of legendary AC/DC guitarist,
Angus Young. The song finished off with sort of an unusual
but very cool ending. For the last several bars of the chorus
before the song ends, Daniel was yelling "We'll make
it up!" repeatedly. It added kind of a cool twist to
the song, I thought. I watched the guys walk by me, and off
to their dressing rooms, fans still screaming for more. To
be perfectly honest, I have seen them six times now, and they
still amaze me with every show. It really is a wonder to see
such a talented young group of people perform.
I apologize
for my lack of Sam and Ben pictures, as I couldn't see Ben
well behind his drum set, and all of my pics of Sam came out
blurry. I have included some of the best pictures from the
show here. Enjoy. |
| By Amanda
Jenkins
At around 4:00pm
my friends and I were trapezing around NY (Times Square actually)
and I (being the most silverchair obsessed of the group) wanted
to check out the venue. So we went out back to see what (or
who rather) there was to see. I felt like a bit of a stalker,
but we were just checking out the scene. Most notably, we
saw Travis from Blink arrive and Ben's head through an upstairs
window looking at us ("Who has spiky hair?!"), and
what looked like Daniel's arm close another back window (skinny,
jelly bracelets- who else?).
We actually got
in line around 5:30 and it was already around the block. When
they called us in to get our will call tickets (the ticket
booth is actually in the lobby), to my shock and amazement,
silverchair were in the middle of soundcheck! Specifically
Emotion Sickness, so I heard from the "Get ups"
to the end. I didn't want to go back outside, but they were
yelling at us. The show started at 7:30 with Fenix TX, who
are actually quite decent (and the guys are pretty cool, more
about that later).
Luckily there was
a good amount of silverchair fans so there was definitely
excitement in the air as we waited for the roadies to finish,
and believe it or not, hardly a screaming teeny to be seen
or heard from.
silverchair opened
with Israel's Son (big surprise), with Chris ripping up the
bass-line, and progressed to Emotion Sickness and Slave. Emotion
Sickness was sung with a great amount of passion from Daniel,
especially the "Get ups" (much more so than sound
check). And I can almost say for certain that he said "Starve
my brain" instead of "Stop my pain", cause
I know there's been some debate. The rhythm section also sounded
awesome.
Slave was notable
because this is where it first became apparent that Daniel
must be one sexually frustrated dude (well, who isn't?). During
one part he ran his hand over his chest seductively and made
some very lovely wanking motions with his right hand. This
was probably the biggest trend of the evening, as we were
also treated to the seduction of Sam, with Daniel running
his tongue over his teeth and performing some very suggestive
hip movements. Not to mention him licking the microphone on
several occasions and more of the grinding hip moves. But
am I complaining? Oh no.
Next was a rousing
rendition of Pure Massacre (where I believe the Sam-seduction
took place), it inspired the crowd to mix it up a bit. After
that Daniel talked to the crowd for the first time, as well
as after the next tune, Ana's Song.
Notable quotes
(from what I can decipher and remember from his completely
non-sensical stage patter (which we all know and love): "Do
we suck? We suck, yeah we do suck, but on frequent occasions
we do play good rock and roll, and BELIEVE YOU ME, we know
good rock and roll, we play it every GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKIN'
DAY!" Or something along those lines. Okay so I can only
remember one thing specfically, it's 5:40 in the morning okay?
After Ana's Song,
Daniel went on about New York and how the people were always
so busy and I believed he thanked us for takigng time out
of our busy lifestyles to rock, and he mentioned life in NY
as it pertained to Seinfeld. Some moron threw a shirt onstage
during Ana's Song, and where did it land? Right on Daniel's
mic stand. It startled him enough that he missed like 2 lines
of the song.
"Are you ready
to kick out the jams MOTHERFUCKERS?" Oh I was definitely
ready. I'm so glad that they decided to continue to play this
in concert again. It rocked, the music and lyrics perfect
for silverchair, and the singing style different for Daniel,
which was very cool to hear.
Daniel chatted
again for a bit before The Door (again, big surprise). He
mentioned that silverchair were the "new brilliant young
grunge trio from Australia." He also seemed to fancy
himself a bit of a stand-up comedian, telling us a joke about
a whale and the beach (something about the tiding being "what
was up") and Ben did the ba-da-ba thing on his drums,
making Daniel and Chris laugh, were was really good to see.
"Oh it only gets better," Daniel laughed. Who believes
in Jesus? Who believes in Satan? You know the drill. And the
congregation definitely answered The Reverend Daniel back
with some rousing Hallelujahs. They launched into The Door,
and it was quite possibly the best I've ever heard it (six
concerts is a bit hard to keep track of). Daniel really did
some splendid things with the vocals.
As I said before
there were quite a few silverchair supporters in the crowd.
(I'd say more than half, even if they were mainly Blink fans),
so Freak was pulled off quite nicely with crowd interaction,
as was the closer Anthem. It always amazed me when the death
metal growl comes out of Daniel's throat, but it did during
Freak, and sounded fantastic at that (cause sometimes it doesn't).Anthem
was a definite crowd pleaser and rocked as much as we all
know it can. Fourty-five minutes of incredible music was over
without so much a parting word or a glance from the 'chair
(which is their style), but the evening was not.
Blink 182 played
a solid set, with a fantastic light show (silverchair's was
not too shabby either), although Mark and Tom talked almost
as much as they played. If you want to be entertained, go
for Blink, if you want to ROCK, go for silverchair.
After the show
was over, we once again acted the roles of stalkers, although
I wasn't feeling too good about it. We waited outside for
an hour and a half and witnessed:
1. Mark from Blink
running out of the building (literally) and dragging his girlfriend
with him. The security guards (or whomever) tried to go after
him but he got away (on his second attempt).
2. Chris with an
entire entourage pratically, complete with John Watson, just
waltzed down the sidewalk and back into the back door of the
venue, completely untouched. It was a huge surprise and no
one reacted in time (which was probably a good thing) to accost
him or even shout.
3. John Watson
pretty much hanging out the window above for a good 20+ minutes.
He seemd to be checking out the scene below, maybe a possible
means of escape. Sam was also visible next to him for awhile.
I seemed to be the only who knew who they were, I thought
about shouting to Watson, but that seemed like too much of
a crazed stalker thing to do.
4. Adam, the bass
player of Fenix TX, hung out and chatted with everyone for
a good hour or so, so did a couple of his bandmates. They
all were really cool guys.
5. Roadies loading
up the truck in the middle of a two lane crowded NY City street,
it was a bit of a commuter nightmare. A charter bus almost
took out Fenix's traveling Winnabago type vehicle (tiny compared
to Blink's huge tour bus "182 Express") while trying
to fit next to the truck.
And that was about
it. The crew told us that all the band members had left already
after we had been waiting for almost 2 hours. Drat, foiled
again by some secret exit. Which is probably a good thing
actually. But all I wanted to do was to finally see our boys
up close and in a "real" life setting, if only for
a minute. Maybe next time. This was just not our night (or
morning for that matter).
One last thing,
for those of you who are concerned with Daniel's health- he
honestly looks healthier, if only a bit. He was wearing long
sleeves and pants, but he didn't look quite as thin as earlier
this year. His face still looks a bit angular though, although
that may have been exaggerated by the stage lighting. He was
smiling and laughing with Ben and Chris which I haven't seen
in a long time in concert. Yet, it sometimes seems like they're
not having a good deal of fun, compared to bands like Fenix
TX or Blink who make it very obvious. Then again silverchair's
songs are pretty serious, and not light-weight fun songs.
Well, it is now
6:20 am and we're almost at our train stop in New Jersey.
I only have one thing to say, this has been one fucking unbelievable
night, but was entirely worth it to see silverchair, one fucking
unbelievable live band in New York City (home to the falafel
and vegan bakeries, yum!), even for a fourth time this year.
|
