Canberra put on some of its renowned miserable weather for the evening while fans shivered their way through the gates and under the open-air tent where The Beautiful Girls opened the gig promptly at 7pm. Highlight of their short set was single In Love.
The half-hour wait for Silverchair to set up had the air buzzing with excitement. Newcastle’s sons took to the stage with Young Modern Station and the night was truly on its way. They played a purely dynamite set, filled with insane levels of energy. The crowd lapped up hits from past and present including Straight Lines, The Greatest View, The Door and Freak which wrapped up their set. Frequent stage guest Paul Mac bought his keyboard-hopping tunes to the stage to lend his hands for Young Modern tracks including _ Emotion Sickness_ and set highlight If You Keep Losing Sleep . The zealous response from the crowd showing fans are warming up the Chair’s distinctly more electro pop-rock sound, in addition to the rock anthems from their early days. An ingenious set design saw three abstract blocks of colour recreate a 3D version of the geometric cover art of Young Modern , which later transformed into screens recreating images from past albums and video clips – all in all a very clever way for hard-core fans to reminisce while also serving as a bit of a map for those Powderfinger fans along for the ride.
The band didn’t mess about with interpretations, leaving most tracks untouched, instead opting for a recreation of the album sound – which they more than accomplished. Perhaps it would have been nice though to see them muck about with some of their older tracks to add a little diversity to the set. Daniel Johns was his usual enigmatic self for the first few opening tracks, remaining focused on hamming it up as a bona fide rock god – complete with using his teeth on his electric guitar and stretching his vocal chords to breaking point while wowing the crowd with his range and tone. About 20 minutes in he began interacting with the crowd a little more (albeit with a slightly odd American accent) begging the crowd to ‘make him feel famous’ and asking them to ‘take a walk down memory lane’ to sing Ana’s Song. An onstage persona he may have, but if this gig was anything to go by he has well and truly marked his place on the Mt Olympus of rock.
After such a brilliantly executed set, the crowd was in for another wait as Powderfinger set up to take to the stage and close the show. Much talk leading up to this concert has focused on which of the two acts was the appropriate closer, with a final decision apparently resting upon age and the slightly higher longevity of Powderfinger. The Brisbane boys took to the stage, also opening with tracks from their latest album Dream Days at the Hotel Existence. Bernard Fanning demonstrated the lovely rich tones of his vocal and the first acoustic guitar of the night in Head Up in the Clouds and Black Tears followed by current big hits I Don’t Remember and Lost And Running before bringing out his rock voice in My Happiness. Noticeably absent were tracks from early albums including Internationalist which would have no doubt delighted old school fans. Powderfinger showed an inclination for deviating from their record sound – demonstrated by an interesting harmonica intro into These Days. The simplistic light show and the acoustic numbers showed a deliberate contrast to the hard and fast preceding set, and as a whole the two acts complimented each other wherever the other fell marginally short. Powderfinger cashed in on their soft-rock fan base right up until the encore which had them playing a sweet version of Sunsets on the wings of the stage before wrapping up the show on a high note with (Baby I’ve Got You) On My Mind. Certainly there was no doubt in the mind of any fan that the gig was sure to be on their minds for some time.
