Mindy (minnie.mouse@mpgs.tiga.com.au)
The night started out with us waiting in line to go in. The line was heaps long, and we were in it FOREVER waiting to go in, as they let everyone in one by one. When we started to get closer everyone started pushing like hell and I thought, oh great, this is only the line, wait till we get inside...
Anyway, we made it down the stairs without stacking it, and went inside. They frisked us. Inside it wasn't as congested as I had expected... and the stands were pretty empty. By the time Frenzal Rhomb had come on, it was packed... Frenzal Rhomb isn't really my kind of music -- bit too heavy for me... but if you like tht stuff then I guess it was pretty all right. The lead singer can jump really high. That's about my only comment on them... oh yeah, I like his dreads and I actually recognised Parasite when they played it.....
My friend, who is very, very short, had insisted on going into the mosh pit at the start of the show, right to the very, very front of the stage. I had warned her, but she didn't listen just because she had survived a mosh pit at the Easter Show concert. I told her that this one wouldn't be as tame, but she didn't listen. I found her sitting down halfway through Everclear crying with no shoes on.
Everclear were pretty good. I was a bit disappointed in them though, I expected them to be better... Art seems really cool. They played heaps of songs including Sin City, Heartspark Dollar Sign, Heroin Girl and Santa Monica. The crowd went off in Heroin Girl and Santa Monica. Here in Australia, Heroin Girl was really big, and Santa Monica has only just started to slip out of the charts.
When Everclear left the stage, I thought I'd make a trip to the toilets before silverchair came on. The line was HUUUUUUUGE and a half. Okay, maybe not. As I was coming back everyone was starting to get back up, and everyone was shrieking, so I looked up on the stage and sure enough three guys were taking to the stage, one stick figure blond dude with a really cool lime-coloured T-shirt I wouldn't mind myself, one Cousin Itt with nothing on but his shoes & shorts, and one very familiar looking guy minus the blue hair. Yep, it was about time...
They started into Slave... everyone went off... Leave Me Out started and it quieted down just a bit... but everyone went off again during Findaway. Daniel copped a plastic bottle full of mineral water in the head, and before they went on into Freak, he said, "If you have to fuckin' throw bottles, don't throw them full because they fuckin' hurt." Also were the usual comments of "thanks for all the jumpin' around" and "if someone falls down in this mosh pit thing here, pick them up so they don't get hurt."
Freak, even though unknown to most silverchair fans in Sydney, proved to be a great success. No doubt the single will sell like wildfire...
When Freak was over, Daniel starting babbling on about "you guys all have big dicks... fill them up with water and wank yourselves" or something like that. How nice.
The familiar sounds of Suicidal Dream quieted the audience down again... everyone just sort of stood there during this one... and threw their bottles at them again. When the song was over, Daniel seemed a bit pissed off for a second, and he goes, "If you don't fuckin' stop throwing your bottles at me, I'm going to come down and smash ya." Everyone laughed and went, "Oooooooooooh!" He went on to say, "This next one I'm gonna do by myself." Ben and Chris made their way off stage. "It's a B-side, you don't know it." It was the same song I had heard Daniel do at the Wollongong show I went to. Now I realised that this was Cemetery. The crowd went quiet, and they all just stood and listened. Nobody threw bottles, nobody waved up- yours signs towards Daniel. When the song was over, and the other guys returned onstage, everyone started cheering, and Faultline started up. Everyone went off again.
I can't believe some of the jumps Daniel and Chris can do. Whoever said that they were getting more active onstage was right. My friends were a bit freaked because they had only seen them at the Easter Show, during which Daniel just sort of stood at the microphone and did the Pogo a bit, and Chris trudged along like he always used to, with the exception of one or two little jumps here and there.
I decided I was getting tired of being near Chris and all his teeny fans shrieking "Chris! I love you!" in my ear. So I tried to trek my way to the other side where Daniel was, but I sort of got stuck in a crowd of all guys, and for the next the next few songs, I made minimal progress.
Madman came on and I though I was gonna get knocked out. Tomorrow came on and it quieted down a bit at the start, so I moved through another four guys or so. I started grossing out when I got pressed up against this guy with no shirt on. Probably from all these horrid sweaty things wiping past me, I started daydreaming of a nice, COLLLLLLLD shower when all of a sudden I had a bout of deja vu. The song they were playing now was soo familiar and I knew all the words, and I knew I had heard a .WAV of it from the Innocent Criminals site, but I didn't pick up on Daniel saying any song title I knew. At the end of the song I figured it was Pop Song.
Next was The Door. It sounded exactly like the .WAV I heard of that one... and I lurrrrved it. By this time I had made myself about two metres from the front of the pit. The crowd surfing was getting pretty serious, and I thought my neck was gonna get broken or something, because they just kept coming one after the other, and I was getting a bit crushed so I decided time out, and went and sat down for a while. Pure Massacre came on. The moshing looked ten times worse when you're watching from the outside. I started thinking, "My god, the things I do to see silverchair! I pay $32 so I can get crushed & sweated on & kicked in the head, headbutted and all the rest."
When Israel's Son came on, I just sat in disbelief at all the heads thrashing, the bodies flying over the rail at the front of the stage and all the rest. At the end of Israel's Son, Daniel goes, "If you surf, or if you go to the beach, this song is for you." Surfin' Bird started up and EVERYONE went BONKERS. This time I joined in. But they didn't do the second part of the song, and the "SURRRRRRRFINNN' BIRRRRRRRRRD" bit. So that was a bit of a bummer. I was waiting for the na na na na bit. ;)
The guys left stage abruptly. Some people started to walk away, everyone else crammed in a bit further because they knew they'd do an encore. Daniel came back on and said, "We're going to do a Black Sabbath song. We'll let the guys from Everclear sing this one." Art & Co. came back on stage and started singing while the guys played, and in between Art & Chris were throwing around toilet rolls. The drummer from Everclear had talcum powder, which he poured all over Daniel. The finale was a bit of a freak out that nobody had expected. Ben pulled his shorts down and you could see EVERYTHING. Then Daniel dived on poor Chris, who inevitably got dakked. I felt so sorry for him. The look on his face, He was soo humiliated & embarrassed. He looked like he was about to cry (hee, hee). But as he jumped up and ran away he looked pissed off. At least you could only see his bum. Daniel was another story. He was worse than both the others combined. You didn't just see his bum, and he didn't just flash. He took it all right off. Everything but his shoes, if he was wearing any. He sauntered offstage in his birthday suit, while everyone clapped and laughed. I heard one guy behing me go, "What a poof!" but other than that, nobody seemed that fussed over it. The guys left the stage. And that was it.
I realised I had somehow lost my Zero T-shirt, so I went to the bit where all the lost property had been put. It wasn't there, I think some wanker had taken it.
Anita (sparkles@mpgs.tiga.com.au)
Frenzel Rhomb and Everclear were OK but Everclear wasn't as good as I thought they would be. Then silverchair came on pelting out their hits. Daniel said some funny things like when people were throwing bottles, he goes, "Stop throwing the fucking bottles 'cause it doesn't make you look good and doesn't impress the chicks." Then he said, "They are all impressed by Ben," and then he goes, "Nah, nah, they don't dig this band, they dig the guy here in front of me," and then he goes, "What a babe!" It was so funny... and he also said another thing that I thought was funny. "If someone falls in the mosh pit can you pick them up 'cause i know it fuckin' hurts and I want you all to remember we are a peace, love and harmony band." Anyway, they played well and sounded filth and at the end 'cause it was the last night, Everclear did the usual and they played Paranoid together but after that they threw stuff everywhere like toilet paper and bread (which I caught and was thrown by Daniel himself) and water bottles and then they started dacking each other and we saw their asses and Daniel full on naked (WOO HOO!) Well, anyway, that's all for now. Sorry if I didn't go into much detail but my neck is aching.