silverchair (Neon Ballroom Tour) & support act pre_shrunk
Brisbane Entertainment Centre, 15 August 1999
by Chay Neal [webmaster of this site]

Firstly I'd just like to comment on the security... Very tight. Everybody had to raise their arms and get patted down, shirts lifted up (they didn't lift up the girls shirts though), and scanning by a metal detector wand. Nothing was allowed in practically. I left my wallet and camera in the lockup before I went in because I wasn't allowed to bring my camera in (I didn't think of flash camera's not being allowed in - I don't get along to that many gigs). So I was very disappointed about the camera thing, I really would have liked some photos of the gig!! That was the first disappointment.

We all piled into the Entertainment Center. I had tickets for the "dance floor" aka moshpit of course. Preshrunk were the first to play of course, as support groups generally do, *lol*. I thought Preshrunk put on a really good show myself. Although the main problem I could see was that it was a SILVERCHAIR gig, not a PRESHRUNK gig, so people were there to see the chair, and I guess most people couldn't really care that much about Preshrunk. But there was a bit of a mosh happening and most people seemed to enjoy it pretty well. They played the only real song that most people would have recognised of course - Sound Pimp. They come up really good live. They also played their new single which you can also hear on triple j - Robots. They had the really cool voice synthesiser thing happening during that song too. Anyway, Preshrunk did a great job of warming up the crowd, giving themselves some more exposure, and introducing silverchair. So I guess you could say they performed their role perfectly. They also threw out some post cards to advertise their sub chakra EP, of which I managed to grab one - my souvenir for the night *hehe*.

Preshrunk also introduced us to the extremely lucky girl, Emma, who won the triple j silverchair competition. They tried to make us yell out "Emma you rock!"... The crowd struggled a bit at saying it, but a fair few people blurted it out... Afterwards Emma just gave us all the finger. Such a sweet young girl ain't she? LOL.

The second MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT came when I saw, not the Placebo equipment, but the silverchair equipment get pushed onto the stage from the back... Its sort of obvious that it wasn't for Placebo because of the big "silverchair neon ballroom" thing or whatever it was on the silverchair drum kit. I sooooo wanted to see Placebo! I wanted to see Placebo even more than silverchair - Placebo being probably my 4th favourite band at the time. :*-(. I was also unlucky, because unlike most people, I hadn't been listening to the radio all day and hadn't manage to find out that Placebo had cancelled their show... So I was even more disappointed than the rest of the crowd at that moment I would say. When Daniel John's came on and after a song or two, announced that Placebo wouldn't be playing, I was just stunned with shock/horror. Meanwhile the rest of the crowd was just cheering and yelling at everything Daniel said, as they generally do to stars at rock concerts. Anyway, after a few minutes I decided there was no way I'm going to let it ruin my evening, or my couple of hundred bucks that it had cost me to get to the gig, so I got back into it.

Anyway, going back a moment to when silverchair came on... The anticipation was enormous. They kept us waiting way too long I reckon, while they were doing all the sound checks and making sure everything was just right for silverchair to come on... When the dudes from silverchair finally came on the crowd went wild. I had worked my way about half way into the mosh bit by that time and nearly got my ears blown away before silverchair even started by all the screaming! Wow! Boy was that loud!

"Erupt again, ignore the pill". Of course, silverchair started off their set with their favourite opener, off Neon Ballroom, Emotion Sickness. I can't remember the track list or even what many of the songs were, so I won't bother trying. Daniel was looking skinnier than ever, in his sparkly black suit.

"It's 12 o'clock and it's a wonderful day". They played all their big hit songs - Tomorrow, Freak, Anthem for the year 2000, Ana's song, etc. They played just about all of the songs off Neon Ballroom, and a fair few off Frogstomp and Freak Show as well.

Daniel tried the to get the crowd to sit down, as he seems to have done at most of the gigs on his tour. It nearly worked... lol. It was way to cramped up in the mosh for everyone to sit down though... its just not physically possible!

"We are the youth". Of course, as with the rest of the shows again, Daniel got some girls and boys up on stage to help do the sing along for the Anthem for the year 2000. Don't ask me why Daniel got all the guys to take their shirts off. I did hear a few people reckoning he's gay or something afterwards. LOL.

Silverchair left after that but Daniel came back a few minutes later to do a few solo songs. Then back came the other two to give us some more. They did a couple of covers as well as more chair songs. Can't remember which ones they did though!

After they finished their encore though, the lights went back on. I think we must have got more silverchair than most of the other gigs they did, but that is still NO compensation for Placebo not being there!

The mosh pit during the entire silverchair set was unreal though. A few crowd surfers, lots of lovely young ladies (*grins*), and just generally LOTS of people, all moshing hard and having great fun. The mosh pit makes you very 'wet' though, so I nearly froze when I walked outside into the wind after the gig!

We all piled out, and I got my very much needed drink! Then I set off down to the train station. The train was absolutely packed!

I'd give silverchair an 8 and a half out of 10 for their performance. And overall I'd give the gig 5 and a half out of 10. Would be more like 9 and a half out of 10, but its a lot less because of the Placebo factor. And I can't believe Placebo were too sick to play on that night, but they were fine to play in Sydney the next night!!! How can this be??? One of those 24 hour sicknesses that my brothers get when they don't want to go to school or something??? Very disappointed in Placebo, especially after the great reviews I have read about them, but other than that, a very good gig.

And special thanks to my friend Daniel for coming with me, and for letting me stay at his place!

If anybody has any photos, or any reviews themselves of the gig, please email me. chayn@ozemail.com.au