HEY EVERYONE PLEASE READ THIS, IT TOOK ME ALL DAY TO TYPE UP. THANK YOU.
*edit* PICTURES COMING SOON.
Part One: Monday, May 19, 2003
I woke up at 6:30 AM and got ready to go to school. I didn't plan on staying too long though; all I had to do was turn in a paper to my World History teacher (because it was due that day), and then I went right back home. I wasn't only skipping school so I could see silverchair that night in New York... unfortunately, I was also legitimately sick. But nothing could ever stop me from seeing the 'chair. Once I got back home, I got on my computer so I could finish writing a research paper that was due the next day for my Genetics class. It took me a few hours to finish. Jess and I called each other a few times to work out the timing. We decided to take the 3:18 train to Penn Station. Then I took a shower, got dressed and left to catch my train. Jess lives in South Jersey, but she was staying at her sister's apartment in New Brunswick, so she got on the train at the next train stop. Jess couldn't find me on the train until several stops later, but that wasn't a very big problem. We arrived in New York a little bit before 4:30.
It's a huge pain in the ass to get to the Bowery Ballroom from Penn Station on the subway. My plan was to get on the A at Penn Station, get off the A at West 4th and transfer to the F, then get off the F at Delancey Street and transfer to the M so we could go one stop and get off right in front of the Bowery Ballroom. (There's no easy way to do it.) We made it from the A to the F just fine. We got off the F at Delancey just fine. I've taken those lines many times before. But the M line's signs were misleading, so I asked some random lady which side of the platform headed for Brooklyn, because that was the one we did NOT want to take. She said "This side goes to Brooklyn" (referring to the side on which she was standing), so we went to the other side. A few minutes later, a J train came, and the J and Z lines are supposed to go to the same places as the M. Once we started moving, things didn't seem right, because we weren't underground anymore- we were out in the daylight. After a minute, we were on the Williamsburg Bridge. I knew that somehow we would end up in Brooklyn by accident, and I was right. We got off at the first stop, and it was the first time in my life that I was physically in Brooklyn. I've gone through it before, but never actually stopped there. Anyway, we figured out where we were and how to get to the Bowery. We got the next M train in the correct direction, went two stops, and got off at the Bowery at around 5:20. We noticed that the Bowery Ballroom was across the street, and saw to our horror that the line already stretched almost to the corner. We got on line, and basically just waited for the doors to open. As we passed the people on line, I saw that the guy at the front of the line looked a lot like Daniel. It was kind of funny, because we saw a lot of Daniel wanna-be guys at both shows.
Jess and I were kind of bored sitting there and waiting for the doors to open, so we played a couple games of tic tac toe, with no winner. Then we played the dot game and I won. I played Snake on my cell phone briefly, but it was really not entertaining at all. After a while, my ass was totally falling asleep and I had to get the blood moving in my legs, so a little before 7 PM I got the chicks behind us to hold our spots in the line so we could take a little walk. CBGB's is only about 5 blocks from the Bowery Ballroom, so I took Jess over there because she had never seen it before. It was nice to get up and move around, and we passed a pretty garden on the way there that was nice to look at. CB's is still a dump, in case anyone was wondering.
On the way back to the Bowery, I decided to call Jose because I had nothing better to do and I was wondering if anything interesting had happened at school and I actually kind of missed him. It turned out that my phone call woke him up... he was taking a nap because he had a headache. I figured that under those circumstances he would be kind of pissy, but to my surprise he wouldn't let me hang up. Once we got back to the Bowery, the line had moved up a lot- they were starting to let people inside, even though doors weren't supposed to open until 8. Jose insisted that I keep him on the phone even when the security people were checking my ID and searching my bag and stuff, which was pretty funny.
The show was 16+ and everyone was supposed to show ID, but Jess had forgotten to bring ID with her. Luckily, the guard only asked her for her birthday, and when she had proved that she was 16, he let her in with a warning that she should bring ID next time. At the Bowery, they send everyone downstairs to the bar area and basically force them to stay down there until 8 when the doors to the performance area open. I guess they figure that if they keep everyone down there in overheated, uncomfortable conditions, more people will buy drinks at the bar. It's a really annoying system though. Anyway, Jose kept me on the phone for almost 20 minutes. Then there was more sitting/standing around and waiting, which is really no fun. Finally at around 8:20, they let us in. The guards were all shouting "NO RUNNING! NO PUSHING!" but of course Jess and I ran and pushed our way up as far as we could get. We were right near the front, so it was pretty good.
A couple of guys standing near me and Jess were conversing loudly and they were really funny... actually they were trying to be annoying, but they were funny anyway. They turned out to be Scott and Graham, from Connecticut. We talked to them a little bit, and they were cool. Graham informed me that Good Charlotte was backstage at the show, which kind of irked me. Then he said, "And there's this band from Connecticut backstage, but they're not popular or anything... all they do is kiss silverchair's asses." So I said, "Let me guess... is it Throne?" Scott and Graham looked at me with the most hilarious shocked expressions. Graham asked, "How did you know that? Are you from Connecticut?" I told him that I'm from Jersey, but I've known for years that Throne kisses silverchair's asses. It's kind of just something I know. So that was really funny. (Graham and Scott informed me that Throne doesn't even try to imitate silverchair that much anymore, because now they're busy riding Good Charlotte's coattails. Man, how pathetic.)
Some chick right in front of me passed out before the show even started. Although I do feel sympathy for her, I think it's kind of funny... I mean, come on... wait until a fucking band comes on before you faint, buddy! She got taken out so I kind of stole her spot.
The Red West was scheduled to start the show at 9, and they were pretty much on time. They were mostly decent, but I don't think they were particularly special. The lead singer (Jason) was kind of funny though. He said something at one point along the lines of, "By the way, if you've been giving us notes and telling us to pass them to silverchair, I'm just letting you know that they're going nowhere." I found that humorous. During one song, Jason got into people's faces for the chorus (which would have freaked me out if I had been at the very front of the crowd) and I think he kicked some chick in the face, or at least pretended to. That was kind of strange. Before they finished playing, the bass player said that the band would be selling stuff from their merch table, so if anyone wanted to go down there and chill with them, people were welcome to come and talk. I thought that was a polite gesture- a lot of bands aren't that nice to their audience. The Red West's set lasted 30 minutes, and then they helped the roadies disassemble their equipment so the roadies could get ready for silverchair to play. I saw Bailey Holloway on the stage, and that was so cool because Bailey (silverchair's guitar tech) is a fucking legend. He's been with the band for like 8 years and he rules. One of the roadies lit up some incense onstage, which set the tone for the show.
Finally at about 10, the room became dark and my heart started racing. A weird remix of Tuna In The Brine came on the PA as intro music, and Daniel walked out onto the stage. He took a seat at his keyboard, and I kind of just watched in awe. He began playing After All These Years, and Julian played backup keyboards with him. It was absolutely beautiful.
Then Ben and Chris came out (I could barely believe that they were actually there in front of me, only a few feet away) and the band played Emotion Sickness. It was extremely powerful, and it was just so incredible to see the band live for the first time. They extended it by adding improvisation near the end. Daniel made some wacky hand movements, kind of like he was conducting an orchestra. I noticed that Daniel's guitar picks were huge. Then they immediately launched into Without You, which was also excellent. Next came World Upon Your Shoulders... seriously, I could not believe that the band was just a couple of feet away from me... you have no idea how shocked I was at that concept. If I were slightly more primitive, I would have been standing there drooling. And honestly, I wasn't too far beyond that. So then they played Luv Your Life, which was great. After that was Tuna In The Brine... I shouldn't even have to say that it was brilliant, because that's obvious. But hearing Tuna live is no less intricate than the recording on Diorama.
Daniel introduced the next song as "a song about thinking you're God... but last night it was about... uh, Judaism." So they played Across The Night, which was (as one would expect) completely magnificent. During the second half of the song, Daniel took off his guitar and kind of danced around like a ballerina. I think it was around this time that my new friends and I noticed that Derek (the lead singer from Throne) was right near us, so we kind of made fun of him. Then Daniel said, "This song is your new motherfucking favorite" and they played The Greatest View. Then Daniel played the beginning of Ana's Song by himself, with an alternate riff. It was just Daniel's voice and guitar for the first verse and chorus, then Ben and Chris came in at the beginning of the second verse (right before "Imagine a pageant"). Their performance was exquisite. Then they played Miss You Love, which was also beautiful. Daniel's experimentation with the vocals keep the song interesting, and it sounded excellent.
Without a doubt, the remainder of the show was the heavier, more rocking chunk that reminded fans why they got into the 'chair in the first place. The Door, Freak, and Anthem For The Year 2000 (in that order chronologically) were killer, and the crowd was totally enjoying the experience. There was a lot of pogo-ing for The Door. Although the Bowery is pretty tiny, there were about 4 guys who crowdsurfed during these 3 songs (which was a dick thing to do, but in a way it kind of added to the rock environment). During Freak, I looked up at the front of the balcony and noticed that John Norris from MTV News was up there rocking out, so that was pretty funny. Then during AY2K, Daniel encouraged crowd participation by making everyone shout, "we are the youth" and all of that. It was definitely thrilling. Also, Daniel did guitar solos for these songs with his teeth... it was awesome. He's so fucking talented.
After AY2K, the band left the stage. The show felt so short (I had been forcing myself not to look at my watch the whole time), but at the same time so fulfilling. I knew that the band would come back for an encore, and sure enough, they returned after a few minutes and played a really tight version of The Lever, with a long extended jam at the end. I had kind of been hoping for some Frogstomp (really just Israel's Son), but I'm not going to complain about the lack of Frogstomp- it was the best show of my life. I noticed that Daniel has a new tattoo on his left forearm (I think it's some kind of sea dragon), and it looks really rad. I also got to see the James Brown tattoo on Ben's right bicep, which looks great. During the jam session, Daniel said "I need a stimulus on my tongue" and he kind of fellated the microphone. It was very entertaining.
But one of the most shocking parts of the show, I must admit, wasn't even musical. Between the normal part of The Lever and the extended jam session, Daniel removed his shirt. Oh. My. God. I'm sorry, I really don't mean to be a jerk or a teenie, but it was almost as amazing as the rest of the performance musically. Not only was Daniel totally ripped (what happened to our scrawny little vegan?), but HE GOT BOTH OF HIS NIPPLES PIERCED. My jaw dropped to the floor. I unfortunately didn't get pictures because my digital camera had run out of memory much earlier, but I did get pictures of it the next night. Motherfucker, it was hot. (Please forgive me... seriously, I'm all about the music. I can't help the fact that I saw the three most gorgeous men on earth that night... and by the way, they're 58236178617861 times more beautiful in person.)
I have a few more things to say about the show, and I don't remember where they fit in, so I'll just say it all here. At one point, I tossed Daniel one of my jelly bracelets so he could wear it. Unfortunately, it landed right next to his feet, and I don't think he noticed that it was there. Hopefully Bailey found it or something and gave it to him. Also, I wrote in my notes that Ben didn't take off his hat the whole time and that Chris had pretty basses. Hmmm, okay. That just goes to show that I write stupid notes.
A few additional things that are slightly more interesting than Chris having pretty basses: I blew a kiss to Ben Gillies and he smiled back at me. I felt like dying right there. Daniel looked kind of disturbed during some parts of the show (think back to 1999 when silverchair would play Emotion Sickness and Daniel was talking to himself and he looked like there were demons inside of him... it was just like that). I felt bad for him, because I thought all of that was gone. Finally, I have to give you a humorous Daniel quotation... I just don't remember where in the show he said it. Between some songs, Daniel was greeting us New Yorkers, and he said something like this: "We love your bagels. We love your CAW-FEE [with strong New York accent]. We love your cream cheese. We love to catch the subway. We love your big yellow taxis, but not the Counting Crows version... only the original."
Since there was a lot of pushing and movement during the show, Jess and I were nowhere near each other for most of the time. But by the end of AY2K, we actually ended up right back next to each other, so that made it a lot easier for us to find each other at the end of the show so we could leave together. Anyway, the show ended at about 11:30. After the show, Jess and I went back to the subway to get to Penn Station. We got on the J (note to self: Never take the J subway again, it will never take you where you're trying to go) and somehow ended up at Canal Street. It wasn't a problem that we ended up there because we could just take the N and R to 34th Street from there and walk over one block to Penn Station... the problem was that we waited 22 minutes and the subway never came. So we gave up and took a cab to Penn Station, and caught the 12:42 AM train home.
And that concludes part one of my two-day silverchair adventure.
------------------------------------------
Part Two: Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Luckily, my mom didn't even try to make me go to school. I got up around 9:30 so I could put finishing touches on my Genetics paper that was due that day... basically, I just had to put it all together. Jess and I called each other a few times to figure out timing (we decided on the 2:20 PM train this time, because we wanted to get there as early as possible), and I took a shower and got dressed. I had to stop at school for about 30 seconds so I could leave my Genetics paper in my teacher's mailbox in the main office. I went to the train station from there, where I found out some really inconvenient news: until further notice, no trains were running, due to some police activity at Penn Station in New York. I don't know why, but the train came at 2:20 anyway. The conductor told us that there was a bomb scare at Penn Station and that until they could report otherwise, the train would only take us as far as Newark. We had the option of switching to the PATH train in Newark, because that was still running. Jess got on the train in New Brunswick, and this time she found me immediately. We worked out backup plans in case the train service wasn't functioning properly, and luckily we didn't have to use them, because the problem got cleared up right before we hit Newark, so the train ended up taking us all the way to New York after all.
This time, we didn't want to waste any time with the subway (or risk ending up in Brooklyn again), so we just took a cab from Penn Station to the Bowery and arrived there a little after 4. Horrifyingly enough, the line was almost as long as it had been upon our arrival on Monday. But we were relatively fortunate, because about 15 people ahead of the end of the line we found Scott and his girlfriend Jenn, and they were nice enough to let us sit with them in line, so we got to skip like 15 people. (I was afraid that they'd kick our asses, but they didn't even seem to notice that Jess and I had sat down there.)
Once again, all we could do for the next few hours was just hang out. But this time, sitting there in line was a lot less boring, for several reasons. First of all, it was really warm and sunny, so a lot of us kind of worked on our tans. But more importantly, I made a lot more friends on Tuesday night than on Monday night... I talked to a lot of people, and most of them were really nice and interesting. I talked to Scott and Jenn for a long time... they were very cool. I really appreciate the fact we got to sit in line with them instead of having to stand at the back. I also talked to this guy and his girlfriend who had driven down from southern Massachusetts. Later on, I talked to two guys and a chick who were into Reggie And The Full Effect... they were very friendly. Then around 6, I ventured up to the front of the line just to see what was going on over there, and I saw the same Daniel lookalike that had been at the front of the line on Monday. I went up to him and I said something like, "Hey, you kind of look like Daniel Johns." So he said, "Oh don't say that, that's too flattering!" I replied, "Well, it's true... you DO look like him, a little bit." He said, "Well thanks but you're being too nice, Daniel is the most beautiful person in the world!" It was really funny, because this guy was so flamboyant. He had pink nail polish on one hand, and purple on the other. He had one of those plastic letter bracelets and it spelled out "I <3 Daniel"... this guy was so great. So I said, "Seriously though, you kind of have the same eyes as Daniel. If you grew out your hair, you'd look so much like him." He responded, "But my hair is all thick and gross. Daniel has perfect hair." The two chicks who were with him said, "You better stop complimenting him, or else he'll get difficult." So I talked to him for a few minutes, and it turned out that he had gotten there at 6 AM to get the first spot in line. Also, they flew up from North Carolina just for these two shows. How hardcore is that? I never found out what the guy's name was, but I decided that he rules.
We just barely caught a glimpse of the band walking into the venue. Shortly after that, since I was standing by the door, I could hear the band soundchecking Emotion Sickness. Then something really exciting happened- I heard them soundchecking Steam Will Rise! I never thought I'd see them play that, so it was really cool to know that they'd be playing it later that evening. At one point during the soundcheck, I saw Sarah McLeod (the lead singer from The Superjesus... but she's relevant because she also happens to be Chris Joannou's girlfriend) come out the front door of the venue with another chick. She walked past me and she was seriously about an inch away. I was really tempted to stop her just to say, "Hey Sarah, I wanted to let you know that I like your music a lot and it would be awesome if your band played in New York sometime." But I kind of chickened out for some reason, and let her go on her way. I figured that if she came back not too long after that, I'd stop her then... but I didn't see her.
Pretty soon after that, they started letting people into the downstairs bar area, just like Monday night. But this time, Jess' lack of ID was a much bigger problem. The guard took her out of the line and told her that they had gone easy on people Monday night, but this time they wouldn't let anyone into the show without proper ID. I went in without Jess and I felt absolutely horrible. I felt like the biggest jerk because probably a good friend would have stayed outside with her, but I was so intent on seeing silverchair that I went in anyway. When I was downstairs, I stood with Scott and Jenn and the Reggie fans. They all assured me that Jess would get in at some point, but I was convinced that they would make her wait 4 hours for the show to end. I was worrying the whole time, and feeling so bad. Jess had given me money for her ticket (because I paid for all of the tickets initially), so I figured I would give her back her ticket money and buy her a t-shirt too, as a sort of consolation prize. Nothing was working out how it was supposed to... I was getting really sad thinking about seeing the 'chair without Jess. She's my 'chair buddy, I would never want to see them without her.
Nearby, I saw a girl whom I had stood next to briefly during silverchair's set on Monday night... she was really polite Monday night, because she apologized each time she accidentally touched me, even though we were in a mosh pit and it wasn't her fault that she got pushed up against me. I talked to her for a couple of minutes while we were down by the bar, and it turned out that she had come down from Maine. That's really far. But then she told me that the guy standing next to us actually came from England! I asked him, "Why are you here if silverchair is playing 4 shows in London in just a few weeks?" And he replied, "I'm seeing them in England, too... I just needed a holiday, so I came here." I thought that was really hardcore. Thumbs up to that guy.
Finally right before 8 o'clock, I saw Jess come downstairs, and I breathed one of the biggest sighs of relief in my life. I had been extremely worried that they wouldn't let her in at all, so it was great that she made it inside. She would have had to do a huge amount of pushing to get to where I was, so she stayed across the room, and we sort of tried to communicate by hand gestures. I figured it wasn't worth it to make a big deal out of her not being able to stand near me during the show, because what matters is that she got in. We found each other when the show ended, and that's the important thing.
Around 8 PM, they let us go upstairs, with the whole "No running! No pushing!" ritual again. It was pretty similar to Monday night, except this time I got even closer to the stage, and to where Daniel would be standing during the show. Seriously I was so fortunate, because I talked to these two girls who were standing next to me, and they were so nice and friendly... I love meeting cool people at shows. Sadly, Scott and Jenn ended up being a bit too far away to talk to, but I'm really glad that I wasn't surrounded by assholes. That reminds me... there was this really tall guy standing right at the stage, half-blocking that North Carolina guy from seeing the stage, so we told NC boy to push the tall kid out of the way when silverchair came on, because nobody deserved a good view more than NC kid did.
One chick with whom I conversed was standing kind of in front of me. She had blonde hair and she was from New York... I didn't catch her name. She was a few months away from turning 21, and she told me that it was her 12th or 13th time seeing the 'chair. Back in 1995 when she was like 12 years old, she actually got to spend an entire day hanging out with the band, and she said they were pretty cool to her. I think that's so fucking awesome.
The other chick near me was named Christine. She was 21 and she had come up from Washington, DC... but that was nothing compared to her last trip to see silverchair. She went to Brisbane, Australia a few months ago and saw the 'chair there two nights in a row. Not surprisingly, their shows are even more fun down there. Christine said that if an opportunity like that arises, just go and don't worry about money and stuff like that... life is too short for that bullshit. I think that's a great lesson. We talked for a really long time about all kinds of things. Christine told me about her job as a veterinary technician, which sounds really interesting. Also, she said that she had some kind of promotional poster thing that silverchair put out for Freak Show but she had nowhere to put it and she was thinking about putting it on eBay or something, so I half-jokingly said, "You could give it to me!" and she told me that she would. So I gave her my e-mail address (she e-mailed me a few days ago) and I'm going to send her some money for shipping, and she's going to send me her poster. I think it's really nice of her to do that, because I sure as hell could never part with anything like that.
Just like Monday night, The Red West came on at around 9. Their set was mostly the same, but in a different order, and a few songs were different. On Monday night they had planned to use a keyboard for at least one song, but when they tested it, it was dead. This time, the keyboard turned out to be functional, so they used it on this Smashing Pumpkins cover, which was kind of interesting-sounding. They made the same "come down and talk to us if you want to" shpiel that they did on Monday night. The funniest part of The Red West's set was during the last song, when the bass stopped working. The bassist calmly-yet-urgently attempted to fix it, then he swapped for other basses twice, and they didn't work either. Meanwhile the drummer, singer, and guitarist were continuing with the song. Jason (the singer) said at one point, "For the first time, we're doing this song as a three-piece" and the crowd kind of laughed. Towards the end of the song, the bass finally started working again, so everyone clapped when the bassist made his entrance. I think as a result of that, they got more applause when they finished their set than they did on Monday night.
I talked to Christine and the other girl some more after The Red West's set. I don't specifically remember anything that happened in between sets that night. My impatience was growing; I could barely wait for the band to come out. I looked around and tried to spot Jess (she's 6'2", so it's usually pretty easy to find her in a crowd) but I didn't see her anywhere. The roadies did the incense thing again, and the smoke drifted around the room.
At about 10 PM, the same silly Tuna In The Brine remix came on and the lights turned off, and the crowd started cheering, and after about 30 seconds, all three members of silverchair came onstage. They picked up their instruments (or in Ben's case, sat down behind them) and began playing Steam Will Rise. It was a very rad performance, and it maintained the same eerie vibe that the Neon Ballroom version has. I cheered for Ben during a couple of his drum solos, which he played extremely well. Chris wore the same shirt two nights in a row... gross. It was a nice shirt though, I liked it. Daniel was wearing this ridiculous tunic dress skirt thing, I don't even know how to explain what it was. He had on a huge ruby necklace too. He looked so funny, but it was great.
The next bunch of songs were very similar to the previous night. They played Emotion Sickness, Without You, and World Upon Your Shoulders. Then Daniel said, "You're going to LOVE the next one." So they played Luv Your Life and then Tuna In The Brine. Whenever there was a section in which Ben didn't have to play, Ben kind of did this groovy dance thing to keep the rhythm... it's hard to describe his movements, but it looked interesting. Ben kept his hat on his head for all of Tuesday night, too (which sort of sucks because he has gorgeous hair, but in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter, because the show was unbelievable). Just like on Monday night, all of these songs were amazing beyond words. Periodically, I noticed the guy from Massachusetts nearby getting really into it, and it made me even happier to see him so thrilled by the show. Also, I spotted Derek from Throne in the balcony... that made me giggle, because I was thinking, "I guess he couldn't handle the scary mosh pit two nights in a row." (For the record, nobody should have found the crowd intimidating at all. It was a little bit tightly packed, but I never felt like I was in any kind of danger.)
I don't remember the introduction Daniel gave for the next song, but it was something interesting. The band launched into Across The Night, and it was awesome beyond words. When Daniel sang "I don't want to be lonely, I just want to be alone," he made these wanking motions, and everyone laughed. After that, Daniel said, "The next song is your new favorite" and they played The Greatest View. Somewhere around then, Daniel gave someone in the front row one bottle of water, and he said, "Each person can have one sip, and then you have to pass it to someone else." I thought it was pretty considerate for him to give us water; he didn't have to do that. I said "Thank you Daniel!" even though the bottle never made it around to me. Overall, Daniel seemed significantly more comfortable onstage than the previous night; I didn't notice him talking to himself or anything this time. The demons were gone, as far as I could tell.
The next two songs were Ana's Song and Miss You Love; both of them were beautiful, just like they had been on Monday night. It was so incredible to finally see my favorite band. I mean, even on the second night, I was in awe of the situation. After that, the heavy part of the show came again. They played The Door, and did this funk-type jam towards the end. I think Daniel did it just for Ben, and Ben appeared to be elated, he was smiling so much. Daniel did the teeth guitar solos again, and shook his ass everywhere. It was quite humorous. Following The Door, they played Freak. Daniel must have noticed that the crowd was singing just as loudly as he was over the PA, because he stopped singing for the last chorus and the crowd sang it alone. It was so much fun to be part of this show.
After Freak came the telltale keyboard noises signaling the beginning of Anthem For The Year 2000. AY2K is great for audience participation, and Daniel made good use of that opportunity. First, he made the crowd sing the first verse without him, while he gave encouraging feedback like "I fucking love this city!" Then when Daniel wanted us to repeat "we are the youth" after him, he said, "We're going to play catch. I'll toss you a "we are the youth, and you bounce it back to me." It worked very nicely. Then Daniel suddenly remarked, "I want some vodka. Could somebody bring me some vodka? Don't take any sips though, I don't want you to give me SARS." We all laughed at the SARS joke. About a minute later, some guy walked right past me holding a full glass of some kind of clear alcoholic beverage over his head, being very careful not to spill. People moved to make a path so this guy could get to the stage. Once he got there, he handed the drink to Daniel, and Daniel thanked him and drank it down. But right after that, someone else handed Daniel a red drink. Daniel thanked the person, and then he chugged the drink, and we all applauded. It was kind of unlike Daniel to do that (it's such a Ben Gillies thing to do), but it was humorous anyway.
I think right around this point, in the middle of AY2K (Ben and Chris were kind of just playing for like 5 minutes before Daniel joined back in), Christine motioned for me to lean over so she could tell me something. There wasn't any crowdsurfing that night, but there had been a lot of pushing during the harder songs, so we had gotten separated. Christine was still only one or two people away from me though, so I was close enough to lean towards her. She said in my ear, "I'm going to move, but I want you to take my spot. Trade spots with me." It was so nice of her to let me have her spot, and we squeezed past each other. By then, we had jerks around us, so she wanted to let me be up by the stage instead of a mean pushy asshole. I thanked her for letting me take her spot, and it was a really good thing I got up there. All of my photographs from that night came out beautifully, but the ones I took from that spot were the best of all. Furthermore, Daniel went around at that point and reached out to the audience so we could shake hands with him, and since I was right in the front, he shook my hand. I couldn't believe it. I was touched by the hand of God (which, by the way, is kind of bony but really nice and smooth). I was very lucky to get Daniel germs on me, and I owe it all to Christine. The band left the stage once they finished playing Anthem.
Again, I knew there would be an encore. Daniel came out a few minutes later, and sat down at the piano. He said, "You probably don't know the next song. We released it as a b-side on one of our singles in Australia." But of course I knew it was Asylum. A lot of us sang along, which Daniel didn't seem to expect. Daniel's performance was breathtakingly beautiful. Then Ben and Chris came out and they did The Lever with the extended jam again, complete with Daniel stripping. Holy motherfucker, that was a lot of fun. I took such great pictures, too. When the show ended (around 11:45 PM), I felt like my life was complete.
Once the lights came on, I found Jess and we went to the merch table. I got a t-shirt and a tour program. Then we went outside and decided to stay and wait until the band came out. It took a while before anything happened. We were waiting so impatiently, or at least I was. Then a cluster of people came outside- it was Ben and Daniel, surrounded by girlfriends and tour managers and such. (I loved the irony of their petite little girlfriends being their bodyguards. That was pretty funny.) They walked to their getaway car as quickly as they could, and they didn't stop to give anyone autographs or anything. With any other band, I would have been pissed at their actions after having waited so long to see them, but I didn't want to dwell on the negative. Chris wasn't in the cluster that left the venue, so I still had hopes that maybe he would stop for three seconds to talk to some fans.
I found Bailey (yay for Bailey, he rules!) and asked him, "Hi Bailey, do you by any chance know if Chris has left the venue yet? Because I didn't see him leave with Ben and Daniel before." Bailey answered, "I'm pretty sure that he's still in there having a drink with the tour manager. He should be out soon." So I said, "Alright, thank you very much for the information." Bailey said, "You're welcome" and that was the end of our conversation. Man I can't believe I talked to Bailey Holloway, he's so rad!
Sure enough, after a few minutes, I caught a glimpse of Chris through this little window outside. We were waiting for him to come outside, and then suddenly this large mob formed about 20 feet behind us- Chris was going out from another door. He seriously ran to get to his escape vehicle, and that was that. I felt insulted for a few seconds that the band just left like that, but I got over it quickly. It would be silly to let something like that ruin my two incredible nights, so that's not what I'm going to focus on.
The guys from The Red West were still around socializing with fans and I noticed that their drummer (I'm pretty sure his name was Ryan) wasn't talking to anyone, so I talked to him for a little bit. I told him that I had been waiting for silverchair to come outside but then they just left, and I said that I really respect bands that stick around to talk to fans. Ryan said that one guy who is extremely good about that is Chris Carrabba from Dashboard Confessional. He said that when he saw DashCon recently, Carrabba got mobbed by like 200 fans, but he stuck it out anyway, and he was friendly towards everyone. Ryan said, "He may sing pussy music, but that guy has balls of steel for doing that" and I agree. Anyway, we talked for a few more minutes, and then Jess and I had to get going, so we shook hands with Ryan and said goodbye, and he told us to have a safe trip home. Then we left, and caught a cab a few blocks away so we could get to Penn Station for the 1:41 AM train home.
The feelings rushing through me at these two shows were unlike anything I've ever experienced before; I don't think there are any words in the English language powerful enough to convey what it was like to be there. I won't even try to describe it any further. All I can say is that these were the best two nights of my life, and until I see silverchair again, I can't imagine anything surpassing that level of happiness for me.
THE END
amused
silly