silverchair
Newcastle Entertainment Centre, 31 July 1999
by Michelle Lucas

The concert in Newcastle was attractive for 3 reasons
1) It is their home town
2) It is the very start of the tour when they aren't sick of being on the road
3) Placebo weren't playing so the tickets were $26!

I have done the road trip to Newcastle before and for all those who haven't been there before it is an excellent place to go for the weekend. There are a tonne of pubs and the club that is open the latest is called Fanny's, that did get many a chuckle from my friend and I. When you travel to the entertainment centre by taxi and the driver tells you that he taught Ben Gilles and his sister to drive then you get to know how proud the whole town is of these guys. The concert was a sellout at 7000 tickets.

As it was all ages and I am significantly older than most of the 7000 ticket holders I didn't go and see the support bands. I believe that one of them was called Army of Prawns and am told that it is Daniel Johns' brothers band but I am not sure, I know there will be hard core fact finders that know all that sort of thing, but to be honest I really don't care. I just wanted to see Silverchair.

After wading through the crowds of butterfly clips, glitter, brand new trainers and cargo pants we managed to get pretty good seats on the right side of the stage. I must say that there were a lot of cool parents there taking there kids to see the concert and I only wished that I could say my parents had done the same!

They came on at about 9:15. Ladies out there of the heterosexual variety would have been well impressed with the shirtless Ben I can assure you. They opened with Emotion Sickness.

That followed by at least 5 songs, some of which I knew and others I didn't. It tool Daniel this long to decide to talk to the crowd (unless you count that old concert trick of pointing at different sections of the crowd over your guitar so that they all feel special). I have to say that I am very impressed with the new lyrical style that the band has adopted and I am aware that all these were penned by Daniel. I was expecting then something more from the guy than the first time I saw them which was just after the release of Frogstomp.

Daniel decided to disappoint. He started his friendly banter by saying how great it was to be back in Newcastle and that it was nice that everyone had paid to come and see them. Then he decided to have a whinge, and this is when he started to lose me. He complained at how he had been treated when they had toured there with Pantera. Now I am not sure what happened nor did I care, for gods sake get over it!

He stopped talking and got back into the music. They are really tight and the sound was amazing, Daniel's voice seemed to reach every corner of the shed, it was simply 10 times better than it sounds on the CD. Ben was also very sweaty by this stage, much to my excitement! They played mostly tracks off Neon Ballroom, with some favorites being "I Miss You Love" & "Ana's Song". They also played "Freak" and some other songs that I know from Freak Show but that I can't remember the titles of.

Then Daniel, well at least I think that it was at his instigation decided to be a Tool, there is no other word for it. Now I know that they toured everywhere when they first started on the strength of 'Tomorrow' and that they have grown as a band since then but what he did was just well it was a wank. They got through the first verse of tomorrow and then they stopped and Daniel yelled at everyone that they were sick of playing it and that we should all be happy because we had heard the hit song the FUCKING hit song and that was it, I think that they then went into an instrumental thing or Israel's son I can't remember. I know that they must be sick of it and that is fair, but there is no need to be a tool about it, just don't play the song at all !

They played a few more tracks and Daniel had another go with some witty comments about being called a 'fuckwit' by the Pantera crowd and I was beginning to think that they were right. He then made everyone screech Hallaluya to him after making some sparkling remark about christianity and the devil. I have no idea what the hell he was on about. Then he started in on BHP and then he tried to make everyone yell Hallalouya louder because they were "Working Class". All this with about as many 'Fucks' as is possible to fit into one sentence, I blame my foul language for the rest of the night entirely on him.

They left the stage for about two minutes just to make every one yell Silverchair ( I am not a fan of the encore- I think that it is a waste of time, just play all the songs you want and then go) Any way, Then Ben came out and took a photo of the audience, followed by the other two and Daniel complained about Ben spitting in the mike. I have to be honest and say that I don't have much to say on Chris other than he was doing his best Flea impersonation in the dancing stakes, he is a good bassist though. They have also added a keyboardist, I didn't catch his name when Daniel screeched it at us.

It was obvious to all that the last song was going to be Anthem for the Year 2000 because it was the only one off Neon Ballroom that they hadn't played yet. For this they employed some truly inspired audience participation. Daniel pointed kids out in the crowd, ( I say kids because anyone younger than me is one!) about 25 and out them on a choir type thing and gave them all T-shirts and they had to sing "we are the youth" back to Daniel as did the rest of us or he was going to be "Fucking Angry". I must say that had it been me who was up there I would have been stoked (well if I was 15 and had every been brave enough to go in the mosh).

That was the last song and the lights went on. I looked at my watch and it was about 10.40. I was shocked to notice that it was such a small set. I did enjoy the music a lot and it was well worth the drive. For all those that have tickets in there hot little hands for the rest of the tour, the boys won't disappoint on the music front. The only thing that I will have to say I am sure you can guess is that Daniel just ended up looking like a real tool, not funny, not even a smart arse in the Ben Lee kind of way, just a tool. So my suggestion is that they put Ben right up the front of the stage, and leave Daniel down the back where no one can see him only hear him sing.

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