Rock-Solid Silverchair Forges Ahead

It’s rare to encounter a concert crowd torn between starry-eyed adulation and the rambunctious impulse to mosh, but that was the case at the Palace on Monday night when Silverchair hit the stage. The young Australian trio took its split-focus set in stride and whipped up bracing squalls of volatile rock punctuated intermittently by singer-guitarist Daniel Johns’ facetious “rock star” banter.

The group launched into each song--from the haunting melancholy of “Cemetery” to the volcanic instrumental fury of “Madman”--as if it were testing the mettle of each composition. It plumbed its radio hit “Tomorrow” for fresh dynamics, highlighting the hard edges as well as the soft spots before Johns closed it with a deliberately flashy guitar solo he attributed, with a smirk, to “the Van Halen influence.”

Likewise, Johns, bassist Chris Joannou and drummer Ben Gillies spurred metallic rants such as “Slave” and “Pure Massacre” to a fever pitch and ended the evening with an apocalyptic rendering of “Israel’s Son.” After putting the song through its paces, slowing it to a crawl before revving it up to a double-time pummeling, the group unleashed a chaotic, feedback-laced finale that culminated in Gillies dramatically stage-diving into the crowd.

Silverchair’s strength of character and commitment to unadulterated rock is the backbone of its songs, and that’s what will sustain the music long after the group’s heartthrob status ebbs.