Review by Edgar Dresme Finally the great day was here. silverchair came to play live here in Holland. At 7 o'clock '013' opened its doors and a crowd of 2000 entered. In other words, the room was sold out. At 8 o'clock the first band began playing. The name has slipped my mind and if I may be honest, I don't care at all. What a total Green Day-rip off (and we know Green Day wasn't that original)!!! (IT WAS THE LIVING END BTW) But at least Green Day has some good songs and this band didn't have any. Oh yeah, a cover of Soft Cell's 'Tained Love'...They only played loud and they blew up an amplifier. Ok, the bass-player played a standing base and that's the only thing that was worth mentioning. At 9 o'clock Fuel 238 began playing and that soundes good, but maybe a more characteristic sound would be nice. I thought the Pearl Jam-Alice in Chains-Nirvana path was already walked by Matchbox 20, Creed and the Stone Temple Pilots. Finally, 9:45, a spoken intro filled the room, gradually accumulating into a fantastic version of 'Emotion Sickness'. From that moment on the band played with such a great enthusiasm and fire, that the world was forgotten for 1.5 hours and the only thing that mattered was the show. The audience was captivated by the charisma of Daniel and followed everything he asked us to do or sing. Ben and Chris placed the steady base in which Daniel could perform his sometimes capricious way of playing. Assisted by one keyboerd player the songs of 'Neon Ballroom' worked out very well, even though there are a lot of difficult orchestral parts on the album. (WHOOH SAM!!!) Even the songs of 'Frogstomp' and 'Freak Show' were played like it was the first time and a special mention applies to the fantastic solo-performance of 'Tomorrow' by Daniel. OK, the shoes Daniel was wearing. It were the strange colourful ones he also wore in the video of 'Anthem For The Year 2000'. And furthermore, Chris' outfit. It was orange and that happens to be the dutch national colour. What a great feeling for detail, knowing our national holiday was 2 days later. (I DON'T KNOW IF CHRIS HAS A GREAT FEELING FOR DETAIL, BUT THIS IS REALLY COOL!!!!!) 
I saw silverchair once, live at 'Pinkpop' in 1997. (see picture on the right) That already was one of the better concerts I ever saw and I think this one was even better. Striking is the change Daniel has gone through on stage, even though that already showed at 'Neon Ballroom'. From a shy teenager, he transformed into a mature and selfconcious singer/performer. Now it's 4 days later and still I'm more than impressed and remembering it like it was yesterday (except for the correct setlist)-WELL, I'VE GOT THAT I hope you people enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it. Pukkelpop Belgium 1999 |
