(*All Photos By Tip Tappers*)
SHOW REVIEW: SILVERCHAIR
LOCATION: El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
2/18/07
May 27 & 28, 2003, Hollywood CA Australian super group silverchair make their triumphant return to the United States for the first time in over three years. After 3 more years in seclusion the boys are back! Silverchair is notorious for not doing full US tours, this trip was no different. 2 nights in New York, sold out in an hour, 2 nights in Toronto, sold out in an hour, 2 nights in LA sold out in under 1 minute!
2 lines wrapped around opposite corners was the scene at the El Rey Theatre in Hollywood on February 18 2007, for this being a sold out show this was the nicest, calmest crowd ever! Near rainy weather, temperature in the mid 50's and a horde of loyal silverchair fans had been lined up since noon, sharing blankets with other freezing fans, holding spots while the person in front of them gets food, playing silverchair songs on acoustic guitars, for some reason this site brought back the thoughts of Woodstock when everyone was about the music, having a good time just being good to each other. So much so that the security told each other "The crowd tonight isn't rowdy at all, so I don't think we're going to put the barricade up.
Doors finally open around 7:30, much to my disappointment the security at the door didn't even check tickets, didn't even look to see that it was the same date, or even the band playing that night. I bought 6 tickets and printed them at home, I could have easily bought one, printed it 20 times and sold them for like $20!
Once inside the beautiful venue the crowd was greeted with highly over priced merch and well drinks. After about an hour of waiting the openers took the stage. A band from Pennsylvania called "Eastern Conference Champions". Man did this band suck! The bass player looked like a creepier, long haired version of "Uncle Rico" from Napoleon Dynamite, and the singer sounded something along the lines of the drunken love child of Placebo's Brian Molko, Radiohead's Thom Yorke, and that guy from Muse, with a mouth full of marbles and a bad head cold, fronting the next shitty incantation of The Killers, or Muse. After about 3 songs I wound up getting a Jack & Coke and sitting on the patio with my wife because the heat was insane.
Around 9:30, after that horrible band, the curtain opening at 9:15, and still 15 minutes more of waiting silverchair took the stage and the crowd went nuts! Opening with what is easily my favorite silverchair song ever "Without You" off of the bands most recent effort, 2003's Diorama. There was only one bummer of the night and that was that the band basically played the whole Diorama album, and that's it. There were other tracks, from Neon Ballroom they played "Emotion Sickness" and "Ana's Song: Open Fire", nothing from Frogstomp, and the Freak Show offerings were "The Door" and "Freak". Bummer right? The band played about 4 new songs including "Young Modern Station" & "Straight Lines".
This band gets better and better every time I see them, singer Daniel John's guitar playing and vocals were amazing, his voice continues to amaze me on a regular basis. Even with all the Jim Beam he'd been drinking straight from the bottle throughout the night he didn't miss a note! All in all this was THE BEST show I have ever seen. If I didn't have to work on the night of their second LA show I would have just reprinted my tickets from the 18th and gone again. Damn the daily grind! Judging by the new songs played, silverchair's new record "Young Modern" is going to be what catapults the band back into American households and radio stations!
