NOTES:
The final 1996 US performance was a surprise show! The band was in town finishing the mixing on Freak Show and filming on their music video for "Freak". They decided to play a show billed as The George Costanza Trio at the Troubadour. I heard about this show via chairpage.com. Unfortunately I was not able to go being that I was 15 at the time with no car or license and also no ride to the show. Tickets sold out pretty quick anyway once the word got out. The Troubadour is a small club with a very up close and personal feel. The boys nearly played the entire new album as well as very covers of of "Minor Threat" and "Paranoid" that would be the featured songs on the upcoming tour. "Pop Song (For Us Rejects)" was a highlight for me since they rarely played it and its a favorite of mine.
Fortunately for us there is an audience shot video available on YouTube with audio from the camera microphones. The path goes like this: Master Hi8(?)>SVHS HiFi>MPEG-2(?)>YouTube (H.264). I'm fortunate to have a digital copy direct from the SVHS safety copy. SVHS>H264 MPEG-4 AVC 720x480 29.97 with AAC Stereo Audio.
The video is mostly shot from the balcony. The video also features some of the soundcheck and pre-show antics. We're lucky to have it but there are, of course, some issues. Being from the balcony perspective it has a horizontal bar across the screen when the camera widens out. It goes right through DJ's head! The balcony is for VIPs and so there are times when people (the Moms?) stand in front.
The audio from the video is the likely source of my cassette copy from then but I've always heard there was a DAT recording. I'd love to find that. My hunch is that the "DAT" is really just the audio from the video, maybe on a DAT tape. Hi8 video camcorders began to use stereo digital PCM audio in the early 90s. It is then possible that the audio from the master tape was dubbed to a HiFi (S)VHS and then DAT and circulated.
The industry magazine Variety also wrote a scathing review of the show that you can read below.
TRT:
Silverchair (Troubadour; 450 capacity; $ 12.50)
Presented by Bill Silva Presents.
Band: Daniel Johns, Chris Joannou, Ben Gillies.
Reviewed Dec. 3, 1996.
Australian teen band Silverchair performed a "secret" show Tuesday at the Troubadour under the alias George Costanza Trio and, much like Jason Alexander's "Seinfeld" character, revealed a self-important naivete that fell somewhere between endearing and irritating. Their second Epic album, "Freak Show," is finished and slated for February and the under-18 trio did display a heightened awareness of their instruments and of the art of showmanship, both aspects sorely missing from their 1995 appearances in L.A. But the music still is so derivative and blindingly unoriginal as to render the band little more than the Teen Beat idols they surely don't intend to be. Nonetheless, dreamboat singer-guitarist Daniel Johns' hair-twirling routine had the girls screaming throughout. As on their multiplatinum "Frogstomp" debut, the new songs played here "Slave," Nirvana ripoff "Lie To Me," "Cemetery" were little more than updates on familiar, late-model riff rockers that most young U.S. bands probably would be embarrassed to play outside of their garages.
By Troy J. Augusto
https://variety.com/1996/music/reviews/silverchair-2-1200448160/