St. Louis, Sep. 1, 1997

By JEWELS

Photos by DANIEL KELLEY

While waiting on line outside Mississippi Nights, we were able to see and hear part of the soundcheck. I could only see Daniel and his dreads, and from where I was, they looked awesome! I heard them play a bit of Slave and Abuse Me.

My friend Kari and I went to a hotel across the street to get a drink of water. At the front desk, I saw silverchair's manager, John Watson. I was still recuperating from having my wisdom teeth pulled, so I had to sit down and put my head down for a while.

We sat on the curb across the street from Mississippi Nights when Bailey Holloway walked past us. He said hi to us and we said hi back. Once we were let in, we found a good spot to sit in the second section of the venue, a very good view. We waited for the Mims to come out. They're a local band that kind of dropped off the face of the earth until now. They finally came out at around 8:30. They played a short setm and thanked The Point [radio station] and silverchair.

The lights dimmed and the DJs from The Point came out. With five minutes, a hip-hop song played in the background (not the circus theme). Chris walked out first, then Ben, then there was a bit of a delay before Daniel came out. I could see his dreads better and they did look awesome. Daniel was wearing a light blue shirt with a darker blue collar and sleeves. Ben had his little mohawk and no shirt on. Chris had on his shirt that I think says "Bud." I can never tell what it says!

They ripped right into Slave with the long pauses. Daniel extended his arms out during the part where they slow it down. Next was Leave Me Out. Before they did Abuse Me, Daniel introduced Bailey as "Jack Russell, he's our masturbation instructor." Everyone got a kick out of that one. Before one of the "throw the sailors overboard" verses, Daniel screamed, "Everybody fucking jump!" so everyone jumped up and down as if they were on pogo sticks.

After Abuse Me I had no clue what song to expect next. The second Daniel ripped into "Welcome to the closing," I screamed. It was fucking awesome! For some odd reason, the crowd wasn't feeling the same way I was. It's like they had no clue what song it was or something. But it didn't bother me, I was loving it.

During Pure Massacre, the crowd went absolutely nuts. The mosh was killer and people were jumping everywhere. After they finished and the crowd calmed down, Daniel said, "St. Louis kicks arse!" It was so funny how he said it.

I was crying during Cemetery. The second I saw the red PRS, I knew what was in store. Daniel said his usual "I'm gonna do one by myself" but he added, "Go for a toilet break and relieve some tension/" I blocked out everyone around me and focused on Daniel's incredible voice. It was so powerful that I could feel it in my stomach. He put so much emotion and energy into it that I was just shaking and my stomach had butterflies.

After he played it and the rest of the guys came back out, Daniel said, "See, this is how punk rock we are. Our guitars go out of tune more often." He messed around with the tuning a bit, then said, "We're gonna do a song we don't do that often. It's kind of poppy!" Within three songs, they did The Closing AND Pop Song! Just imagine how awesome Learn To Hate would be!

Daniel did his lovely "The water in St. Louis..." The crowd went nuts and I was especially happy because he acknowledged St. Louis in one of his songs. See, we aren't so bad after all!

Here's a good example of Daniel's awesome sense of humor. After Tomorrow he screamed into the mic, "Let me hear some motherfuckin' noise! How y'all out there? Y'all ready to rock? Y'all ready to rock in the motherfuckin' hood y'all? Can I hear some screaming? Can I get a halleluia? Yeah! Ready?" He then kicked right into The Door. He was all gangsta like and it was hilarious! Even Ben and Chris were laughing at him.

The Door ended and Faultline started up right away. Daniel went totally nuts at the end, along with the crowd. It was so packed with energy that it was unreal. I could just tell by looking around that the lucky St. Louisians were fortunate enough to win tickets were enjoying themselves. I know that Kari and I were.

Another prime example of Daniel's humor -- "I've got a story. You wanna hear a story? It's not very good but I'll tell you anyway. We came into St. Louis today in a little mini-van. We've been traveling around in this eight-seater mini-van with nine people for the past four weeks so it's been relatively smelly and hot 'cause it's summer in your country, which means it's winter in ours. So anyway, we invited this guy on our bus 'cause we thought he looked attractive. He started doing sexual manuevers and started fondling with Ben's genitalia. He said he should shave Ben's head due to the hot weather and instead he left the chunk down the middle. Hey, I told you it was bad -- you wanted to hear it!" I must say that Ben looked exceptionally pissed.

After that, they went into No Association. Daniel was Mr. Anger-man during that song! He used his evil voice during "stop sucking the blood right out of me." During the mysterious "waterfall" part he kind of mumbled it. I wasn't exactly sure what Daniel was doing after No Association when he went up to the middle of the stage and just stared into the crowd. The lights were shining on him and he looked very evil. He stood there for a while and stared out into space, strumming spontaneous chords on the guitar with lots of feedback. I've never thought Daniel could actually look scary but the lighting made him look so psycho!

He then started the first chords of Freak and the crowd was pleased because they kept screaming for it. He flicked the crowd off when he sang "as cool as all of fucking you." During one of the last "body and souls," they slowed it down and Daniel was singing with no music playing. He was quiet until he screamed, "I'm a FREAK!"

Next, Daniel said, "This is off a movie soundtrack. We've only played it live once. We're probably gonna fuck it up." But I must say that they had perfected Spawn. I listen to the album version all the time and never imagined what it would be like to hear it live. It was so awesome! They had the spotlight on Chris during the bass solo.

They then left and took a short break. I was surprised when they started playing Nobody Came. The crowd was mellow at this time, but they got into it when it speeded up.

I sensed that Israel's Son was up next. The spotlight was on Chris again and he did his thing with the bass and fired it up. It was totally awesome. At the end, Daniel threw down his guitar and grabbed the mic off the stand, went to center stage and just screamed his head off. "Put your hands in the air!" He jumped around on a rampage and it was so energetic. He almost inhaled the mic as he was screamed into it. The venue lights were flashing on and off to go along with the song. Everyone had their hands up and people were jumping like mad. I couldn't help but smile at seeing the crowd so pleased.

After the show, we sat around until we saw Bailey, Hugh Taranto and Daniel's father Greg Johns throwing out memorabilia for the fans. Soon it was time to leave, so we headed for the doors and just walked around outside. People were all about, looking for the guys. All the crew members and the guys' dads were standing outside the mini-van. After waiting around for a bit, we decide to leave. We walked away at the same time the dads did. Some girl was talking to Daniel's father and he was nice to her and wished her a happy birthday.

Slowly, we went to the car. I was so blown away that I could barely walk. Let me say this -- out of all the shows I've been to, this was by far the best. They were just incredible and I'm not surprised.

Set List:
(Green PRS)
Slave
Leave Me Out

(Black PRS w/ 'People Suck' sticker)
Abuse Me
The Closing
Pure Massacre

(Red PRS)
Cemetery
Pop Song For Us Rejects
Suicidal Dream
Tomorrow

(Green PRS)
The Door
Faultline
No Association
Freak
Spawn

Encore
(Green PRS)
Nobody Came

(Black PRS)
Israel's Son

We went up close to the stage (the area was packed with people already) and looked for a spot to stand. I saw Jewelee, and we talked a little. She told me about Daniel's dreads and stuff, and then we went closer to the stage. We found a spot about two people away from the stage. After waiting about 20 minutes, the Mims came on. They were great for an opening band. They played a short set. There was one especially funny thing about them. The bassist was not exactly with us, if you know what I mean. He was very happy throughout the whole set and had this grin on his face the whole time. Before the Mims were done, I could see the back door open, and in came Daniel and someone I think was John Watson. Daniel seemed really short, I don't know why, then I saw his dreads -- they are really cool! You can hardly recognize him.

The Mims went off after thanking The Point and Mississippi Nights and silverchair for letting them open. After waiting for about a half hour and watching everyone set up for silverchair's set, the lights dimmed and The Point DJs came out. They said some stuff, and said silverchair would be on in a few, and then they left. After what seemed like forever (I think it was about 10 minutes) the boys came on. I could hardly recognize any of them, except I could kind of recognize Chris (they all look NOTHING like they did about a year ago, or even a few months ago.

They opened with Slave. They had long pauses in the beginning part. Next was Leave Me Out, and it was hard to tell what it was because they played it really fast (not to mention loud!) For Abuse Me, they brought out Bailey and Daniel introduced him: "He's also known as Jack Russell... he's also our masturbation instructor." Next was The Closing, which was really great. I didn't expect them to play it. Then Pure Massacre (another vicious moshing crowd). Then Ben and Chris left, and Daniel said he was going to do a song by himself. Cemetery was great because I could enjoy Daniel's voice.

Next was Pop Song, which I really didn't expect. Daniel noted that told us they don't play it very often. Then came Suicidal Dream and Tomorrow, probably the second best song on the night. Daniel changed around some lyrics: "The water in St. Louis is very hard to drink" and "You think you can keep on goin' livin' like a hermit."

Next was The Door, yet another song I didn't expect to hear, and then Faultline and No Association. I could clearly hear that Daniel was singing, "Waterfall, I can't move it" even better than on the album. Then came Freak, and then Daniel said, "This song is from a movie soundtrack, and we've only played it once and we fucked it up, but we'll play it now." From what I could tell (I've never heard the song before) they played it perfectly -- definitely a reason to get the Spawn soundtrack.

They left and we moved up to the "seated" area. It was much calmer up there, and so I could enjoy the last 2 songs more. They came back out and kicked into Nobody Came and then Israel's Son, which was definitely the song of the night. I loved this one. Daniel was going crazy, and after a while, he just threw his guitar toward Ben's set, picked up the mic and ran all over the stage yelling at the crowd to put their hands in the air. Soon, the show was over, and the place cleared out.

Well, last night silverchair played in St. Louis. It was a really great show. I made a total fool of myself right before I went into Mississippi Nights. There's a hotel right across the street from the venue so I went over there to see if maybe silverchair was staying there.

As I'm leaving the hotel (a very nice hotel) who do I see in the lobby but Ben, Daniel and Chris just standing around doing nothing. As I got closer Daniel turned my way and started to walk in my direction. We smiled at each other but stupid me totally locked up, not saying a word and just kept walking straight out the door. When I went and told my friend they were in the lobby she went over to check things out and Ben was leaning against the counter doing absolutely nothing. Of course she did the same thing I did, she smiled and said hi and he smiled back at her and she just walked right back out the door. You have to realize when you're in total awe of someone you lose all vocabulary that you ever knew.

Now I'm sure all of you are probably saying how dumb can you be you had the chance to talk with them and you totally blew it. Well, all I can say is that I was so self-conscious that I thought they wouldn't even look in my direction and I didn't want to be all clingy like some girls do. There were so many young girls at this concert just screaming at Daniel. I'm 17 and I was probably one of the oldest girls there. Not that age matters at all but these little girls were the annoying type who wanted to get into the very front just to stare at Daniel.

Oh, one last thing, Daniel's hair is da bomb. It is totally rad. It's in dreadlocks and it is the coolest hair I've ever seen. Ben's mohawk is also killer but Daniel's hair looks so awesome.