silverchair at Lollapalooza
Silverchair is more than a band to me. They’re guys I’ve grown up with, guys that I feel like I know from spending 12 years of my life as their fan and going to their shows, listening to their albums and watching/reading/listening to interviews. Their music has been such a source of support to me, with whatever I happen to be going through. I love Daniel, Ben, and Chris (and no, not in a romantic way), and seeing them at Lollapalooza today made me realize all this again in full force.
I went to Lollapalooza specifically to see Silverchair. There were some other bands that I had wanted to go see, but I wasn’t feeling so great and thus wound up going only to see Silverchair. I got there about an hour before they went on stage, and somehow managed to get a spot in the front row - on Chris’ side as has unintentionally become a tradition for me at Silverchair concerts (7 our of 9 concerts I’ve wound up standing on his side of the stage).
There was a girl who stood near me and kept trying to get this security guard to let her go backstage, or to go tell Daniel a message for her. She claimed to have known him and spoke with an Australian accent, but the guard said he wasn’t allowed to do things like that. The girl seemed to be getting really irritated. I don’t know if she was telling the truth or not. It was confusing. Anyhow, while the audience was waiting some people started chanting “Aussie! Aussie Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!” and “sil-ver-chair! Sil-ver-chair!”
Finally, this guy who was standing on the other side of me says to his girlfriend (?) “look, there’s the keyboard guy” and so I turned to face where he was looking. Presumably, they were talking about Paul Mac, but my eyes went straight to Chris who was walking along this sort of low-level catwalk type thing that led them into the backstage area. Ben was a bit behind him, and Daniel followed Ben - with two women a little ways behind him. I thought that perhaps one of the women was Natalie Imbruglia, though the woman had on sunglasses (I think?). It had been 8 years since I last saw them live and I couldn’t stop smiling for most of the concert, it was like a reunion with old friends in a lot of respects.
This DJ from Q101 (the local alternative station here) came out and said that this was the highlight of his whole weekend - Silverchair playing - and how it had been ages since they were last in Chicago. Then the band came on stage and the crowd started screaming (for the record here’s what they were wearing: Daniel - green blazer, red headband, some kind of pants - though Daniel took off the blazer mid way through their set/ Chris - all black / Ben - dark blue undershirt and some sort of pants… and they were all wearing shoes, I think).
They opened with “Young Modern Station” after or before which Daniel said something about ‘thank you’ and thanking Lollapalooza for inviting them. Then I believe he said “I can smell pot! Someone out there is smoking pot - somebody better call the police!” Next, was “Emotion Sickness”, and then Daniel randomly said “I once had a dream where I was vomiting dolphins. Yeah, it was really weird, this is a song about that,” which cracked me up and Daniel seemed to be laughing/smiling as he said that. The song they played was “Without You” during which Daniel stopped singing so that the audience could do one part, and a fair sized portion of the audience sang, though not a whole lot. Daniel jumps in and says “You’re gonna make me cry!” and then carries on with the song. I wasn’t sure if it was sarcastic, or if he was upset, or if he was touched that a fair part of the audience knew the words to a song that wasn’t released as a single here and which they did not tour in Chicago to promote. Usually I’m good at getting his sarcasm… hmm.
Daniel said something about how great Chicago is and that he“feels bad for people who aren’t here, because Chicago is the place to BE! This song is dedicated to Oprah,” and then he paused, and added “and Stedman” (referring to Oprah’s long time boyfriend/fiancé) and they played “The Greatest View”. After that Daniel introduced “Insomnia” by saying “This is a song about ME!” the “me” was in a squeaky kind of tone, it was amusing.
I have to note that this is the happiest I have ever seen all three of the guys during a live performance. There was lots of smiling, and looking happy at one another as they played. Lots of great energy. Daniel’s voice seems to have totally recovered from the laryngitis he had (his voice sounded awesome and he added little embellishments to many of the songs). It was just really good to see them all in good health and looking like they were really enjoying themselves. Daniel also has taken to playing more guitar solos, including playing guitar with his teeth and dramatically laying on the ground… or at one point, on top of Paul’s keyboards.
I’m sort of unsure of the order in which they played the rest of the songs - aside from the last two.
Daniel’s introduction to “Straight Lines” was, “this is a song about you”.
There were a couple of songs during which Daniel asked us to clap along with our hands in the air. During one of them he thought that we should be doing a better job clapping and told us, in a hillbilly American accent that he was “playing with my hand darn near broken,” so we should at least be doing a better job clapping - everyone responded with more clapping, higher up in the air. I think that his hand was probably okay, though he did have a wrap on part of it, maybe his arthritis was acting up due to the rainy weather? I hope it’s okay.
Oh! During a few of the songs Chris did bass solos and Daniel was like, “ladies and gentlemen - Chris Joannou.” I thought that this was cool as I don’t remember Chris getting solos in their concerts before, other than the 17 second long bass line opener to “Israel’s Son”. Daniel also introduced Ben in a sort of similar fashion, though he didn’t get a big drum solo.
Speaking of Chris though, earlier on in the show Daniel said that “Chris wanted me to inform you that we are not gay.” I love the randomness of Daniel’s commentary.
“Reflections of a Sound” was really fantastic live, then again… all the songs were. I think they played “Ana’s Song (Open Fire)” somewhere near “Reflections of a Sound”.
Daniel announced that we would be “going back in time with this next one, back to 1925,” and then they played “The Door” lol, which was released in 1997. They added a sort of more, hard rock-ish part near the end of the song, so that was cool
Daniel announced that it was Paul Mac’s birthday, and then led the crowd in singing happy birthday to him. Daniel added at the end, “may you have another 26 more” or something like that, suggesting that Paul Mac was 26 - which he is not - and then Daniel started laughing.
At the start of “Mind Reader” we were instructed, by Daniel to clap along with Ben playing the bass drum. I think we did a good job with that!
The second to last song was “If You Keep Losing Sleep” before which Daniel asked us all to scream. We did, and then he asked us to scream twice, so we did again (Daniel was conducting our screams with raising his fist into the air). This led to him asking us to scream three times. But a bit into the song, he asked us to scream once - we did - and then scream five times - we did - and scream once again (I think). Also during this song, after singing the line “if you keep counting sheep”, Daniel started to baa. Yes, like a sheep. He did this like three times, very entertaining. Great sheep imitation XD
Before the last song, Daniel said “Seacrest out!” lol.
The last song was “Freak” and towards the end of it they stopped playing, or at least Daniel stopped singing., but I think the music stopped as well, and the audience did the “body and soul, I’m a freak, I’m a freak” part. A LOT of the audience sang along this time, and Daniel said, in a different - more touched (?) tone, “you’re going to make me cry! Do it again.” We did, and he wound up asking us to sing that part about five times I think.
Before they left the stage, Ben threw about 6 drum sticks into the audience, and his bottle of water. Earlier Daniel threw a guitar pick out.
I think a lot of us were expecting they’d come back out again, but once I saw them walking back out again on that lower-level catwalk thing, I knew that they wouldn’t be playing an encore, which is really too bad as the show went by super quick.
It was another fantastic show from one of my most favorite bands. Everyone should go out and buy their latest album, btw, “Young Modern” it’s very original and really enjoyable.
I went to Lollapalooza specifically to see Silverchair. There were some other bands that I had wanted to go see, but I wasn’t feeling so great and thus wound up going only to see Silverchair. I got there about an hour before they went on stage, and somehow managed to get a spot in the front row - on Chris’ side as has unintentionally become a tradition for me at Silverchair concerts (7 our of 9 concerts I’ve wound up standing on his side of the stage).
There was a girl who stood near me and kept trying to get this security guard to let her go backstage, or to go tell Daniel a message for her. She claimed to have known him and spoke with an Australian accent, but the guard said he wasn’t allowed to do things like that. The girl seemed to be getting really irritated. I don’t know if she was telling the truth or not. It was confusing. Anyhow, while the audience was waiting some people started chanting “Aussie! Aussie Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!” and “sil-ver-chair! Sil-ver-chair!”
Finally, this guy who was standing on the other side of me says to his girlfriend (?) “look, there’s the keyboard guy” and so I turned to face where he was looking. Presumably, they were talking about Paul Mac, but my eyes went straight to Chris who was walking along this sort of low-level catwalk type thing that led them into the backstage area. Ben was a bit behind him, and Daniel followed Ben - with two women a little ways behind him. I thought that perhaps one of the women was Natalie Imbruglia, though the woman had on sunglasses (I think?). It had been 8 years since I last saw them live and I couldn’t stop smiling for most of the concert, it was like a reunion with old friends in a lot of respects.
This DJ from Q101 (the local alternative station here) came out and said that this was the highlight of his whole weekend - Silverchair playing - and how it had been ages since they were last in Chicago. Then the band came on stage and the crowd started screaming (for the record here’s what they were wearing: Daniel - green blazer, red headband, some kind of pants - though Daniel took off the blazer mid way through their set/ Chris - all black / Ben - dark blue undershirt and some sort of pants… and they were all wearing shoes, I think).
They opened with “Young Modern Station” after or before which Daniel said something about ‘thank you’ and thanking Lollapalooza for inviting them. Then I believe he said “I can smell pot! Someone out there is smoking pot - somebody better call the police!” Next, was “Emotion Sickness”, and then Daniel randomly said “I once had a dream where I was vomiting dolphins. Yeah, it was really weird, this is a song about that,” which cracked me up and Daniel seemed to be laughing/smiling as he said that. The song they played was “Without You” during which Daniel stopped singing so that the audience could do one part, and a fair sized portion of the audience sang, though not a whole lot. Daniel jumps in and says “You’re gonna make me cry!” and then carries on with the song. I wasn’t sure if it was sarcastic, or if he was upset, or if he was touched that a fair part of the audience knew the words to a song that wasn’t released as a single here and which they did not tour in Chicago to promote. Usually I’m good at getting his sarcasm… hmm.
Daniel said something about how great Chicago is and that he“feels bad for people who aren’t here, because Chicago is the place to BE! This song is dedicated to Oprah,” and then he paused, and added “and Stedman” (referring to Oprah’s long time boyfriend/fiancé) and they played “The Greatest View”. After that Daniel introduced “Insomnia” by saying “This is a song about ME!” the “me” was in a squeaky kind of tone, it was amusing.
I have to note that this is the happiest I have ever seen all three of the guys during a live performance. There was lots of smiling, and looking happy at one another as they played. Lots of great energy. Daniel’s voice seems to have totally recovered from the laryngitis he had (his voice sounded awesome and he added little embellishments to many of the songs). It was just really good to see them all in good health and looking like they were really enjoying themselves. Daniel also has taken to playing more guitar solos, including playing guitar with his teeth and dramatically laying on the ground… or at one point, on top of Paul’s keyboards.
I’m sort of unsure of the order in which they played the rest of the songs - aside from the last two.
Daniel’s introduction to “Straight Lines” was, “this is a song about you”.
There were a couple of songs during which Daniel asked us to clap along with our hands in the air. During one of them he thought that we should be doing a better job clapping and told us, in a hillbilly American accent that he was “playing with my hand darn near broken,” so we should at least be doing a better job clapping - everyone responded with more clapping, higher up in the air. I think that his hand was probably okay, though he did have a wrap on part of it, maybe his arthritis was acting up due to the rainy weather? I hope it’s okay.
Oh! During a few of the songs Chris did bass solos and Daniel was like, “ladies and gentlemen - Chris Joannou.” I thought that this was cool as I don’t remember Chris getting solos in their concerts before, other than the 17 second long bass line opener to “Israel’s Son”. Daniel also introduced Ben in a sort of similar fashion, though he didn’t get a big drum solo.
Speaking of Chris though, earlier on in the show Daniel said that “Chris wanted me to inform you that we are not gay.” I love the randomness of Daniel’s commentary.
“Reflections of a Sound” was really fantastic live, then again… all the songs were. I think they played “Ana’s Song (Open Fire)” somewhere near “Reflections of a Sound”.
Daniel announced that we would be “going back in time with this next one, back to 1925,” and then they played “The Door” lol, which was released in 1997. They added a sort of more, hard rock-ish part near the end of the song, so that was cool
Daniel announced that it was Paul Mac’s birthday, and then led the crowd in singing happy birthday to him. Daniel added at the end, “may you have another 26 more” or something like that, suggesting that Paul Mac was 26 - which he is not - and then Daniel started laughing.
At the start of “Mind Reader” we were instructed, by Daniel to clap along with Ben playing the bass drum. I think we did a good job with that!
The second to last song was “If You Keep Losing Sleep” before which Daniel asked us all to scream. We did, and then he asked us to scream twice, so we did again (Daniel was conducting our screams with raising his fist into the air). This led to him asking us to scream three times. But a bit into the song, he asked us to scream once - we did - and then scream five times - we did - and scream once again (I think). Also during this song, after singing the line “if you keep counting sheep”, Daniel started to baa. Yes, like a sheep. He did this like three times, very entertaining. Great sheep imitation XD
Before the last song, Daniel said “Seacrest out!” lol.
The last song was “Freak” and towards the end of it they stopped playing, or at least Daniel stopped singing., but I think the music stopped as well, and the audience did the “body and soul, I’m a freak, I’m a freak” part. A LOT of the audience sang along this time, and Daniel said, in a different - more touched (?) tone, “you’re going to make me cry! Do it again.” We did, and he wound up asking us to sing that part about five times I think.
Before they left the stage, Ben threw about 6 drum sticks into the audience, and his bottle of water. Earlier Daniel threw a guitar pick out.
I think a lot of us were expecting they’d come back out again, but once I saw them walking back out again on that lower-level catwalk thing, I knew that they wouldn’t be playing an encore, which is really too bad as the show went by super quick.
It was another fantastic show from one of my most favorite bands. Everyone should go out and buy their latest album, btw, “Young Modern” it’s very original and really enjoyable.