Houston
(Buzzfest '97), Aug. 30, 1997
By RACHELLE
ROSALES
My friends
and I arrived at the Woodlands Pavilion at 3:00 in the afternoon,
not really sure what to expect or where to go. So we walked
around, checked out all of the T-shirt booths, and went up
to the lawn seating to see what was happening.
 After
about an hour, my best friend Georgianna and I decided we
were going to get water before we died of heat exhaustion,
and then take our places in the pit. While standing in line
for water, Georgianna spotted Jarod, one of the Buzz DJs.
So we talked to him for a while, then made our way to the
front of the venue, to get our yellow bracelets, our pass
into the pit.
We stayed
in the pit rest of the day, except to get more water, and
make our fair share of trips to the misting tent. The amount
of silverchair devotion in the pit was unreal. The only ones
that remained during the set changes were the fellow chairheads.
What a sight to be back in the lawn seating and see the very
front row lined with the words "Frogstomp" and "Freakshow"!
Finally,
the time had arrived for silverchair to come out, and as Jarod
made his way up to the stage to announce them, I turned around
and saw every single one of the 13,500 rockin' fans rise to
their feet. silverchair made their entrance quickly, and immediately
started playing.
 The first
song up was Slave. Although it really got the moshers going,
I thought it sounded rather weak. It turned out they had forgetten
to plug in Chris' bass. There seemed to be other problems
because Daniel kept looking over and making signs to the sound
guys to turn him up.
By the
end of the song, everything was fixed, and they went into
Leave Me Out, then slowed it down with Abuse Me, in which
he introduced Bailey Holloway as "the guitarist for Black
Sabbath."
After
Abuse Me, Daniel made his first comment to the crowd. It was
a simple but effective, "Everybody fucking jump!"
Everyone fulfilled his request during Pure Massacre and The
Closing, which got everybody hyped up and rowdy.
When The
Closing was over, Ben sat down on the floor by his drums,
and Chris made his way to the side of the stage. Daniel played
Cemetery, very well, but not before saying, "Don't hold
up your lighters...thank you."
The next
two songs were Suicidal Dream and Tomorrow (Daniel changed
it to say "The water in Houston, Texas is very hard to
drink.")
 By
this time the crowd was totally crazy, and Daniel sang his
Houston song. It went "Houston... is really fucking cool...
my name is Daniel... yours is too... look at our lighting
guy... his hair is blue. Are you motherfuckers ready to rock?
Can I hear a motherfucking hallelujah?"
The rest of the setlist consisted of The Door, followed by
No Association, Freak, Madman, Israel's Son, and several visits
to the front of the stage by Daniel.
At the
end of Israel's Son, the mosh pit was massive, and Daniel
repeated his "everybody fucking jump" command, as
well as several, "Put your hands up in the fucking air!"
silverchair
made a rapid exit, and I heard they left the venue immediately.
Although there was still one band left to play, the highlight
of the night was over. silverchair had come to Houston once
again to show their domination. There was an amazing amount
of energy produced by their music, and the band gained a heap
of new fans.
Buzzfest
'97 could really be summed up in just a few words: a few new
friends, a few good bands, a few good bottles of water, and
a kick ass show by silverchair. |
The
rhythm rang out to a sea of halter tops and cut-offs as the
Buzzfest sounded off for the third year in a row. Cynthia
Woods Mitchell Pavilion was filled to capacity as 13,500 rock
music lovers crammed in to hear the 12-hour music marathon.