Review by Hugh Spence for MPM
This is a big one, its been 9 years since System of a Down has played the UK or Europe, but it’s been 24 years since System of a Down played in Ireland at Ozzfest in 2002, so it’s been 24 years since i was lucky enough to see them so this gig has been a long time coming. Although they haven’t released any new albums since the double albums of Mezmerize and Hypnotize in 2005, 21 years ago and yet still remain one of the biggest bands in the world with selling out stadiums all over Europe with great ease. To add to System of a Down, we have the exceptional Queens of the Stone Age, who have toured relentlessly and released 5 albums since the SOAD’s last release, although a very different band from System of a Down, they are still a very welcome bonus to the tour, personally I haven’t seen them live in Slane 2003. To top this line up off is the legendary Acid Bath, a band I thought I’d never get to see live after disbanding 19 years ago but reuniting in 2024 so this truly is the dream concert.
An early rise on another beautiful sunny day so our group of rockers and headbangers to make our way to Belfast International Airport for an early morning flight, where we are joined by fans from all over the country making their way to London, plenty of SOAD and QOTSA shirts wandering all over the airport. Since we arrive in London early in the day we make a wee trip to the Carts & Horse pub, the birthplace of Iron Maiden, a brilliant pub with very friendly staff, lots of Maiden memorabilia and fairly priced delicious pint, so I’d highly recommend any self respecting Maiden fan to make the short journey.
As the evening rolls in we make our way to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, we just follow the hoards of black shirts taking over the streets and there is a real positive energy in the air. The stadium itself is huge with both nights of gigs sold out, it’s a great venue, very little queuing, bar the merch store of course, plenty of space to move around but of course very expensive drinks.
Acid Bath kick off the evening at exactly 6pm with “Bonus Poem” blaring out over the PA system as Dax and crew come out on stage to start with “Tranquilized” from 1994’s “When the Kite String Pops” but unfortunately the first thing that is noticeable, except for the sparse crowd, is the terrible sound with the vocals being incredibly low so you can barely hear them. They continue then with 3 songs from 1996’s “Paegan Terrorism Tactics”, “Bleeding me an Ocean”, “Graveflower” and “Paegan Love Song”, thankfully by the time they play Paegan Love Song the sound has greatly improved to give us the full effect of Acid Bath, they finish their short set with “The Mortcian’s Flame”, although it was great to finally see Acid Bath live, the band was well received and I am extremely grateful to see them, I just don’t think the sound and venue did the band justice, Dax, Sammy (Pierre), Mike (Edison), Shane and Zack are fantastic musicians and played perfectly but they were let down by the venue, I hope this was just a once and they get the sound they deserve for the remainder of the tour, hopefully they’ll hit Ireland sometime in the near future so I can get the full experience.
There is a 30 break while the stage is set up for Queens of the Stone Age, in that 30 minutes the stadium goes from sparsely crowded to being completely full, so it’s safe to say the vast majority of the crowd also want to see QOTSA and not just SOAD. At 7pm, Josh, Troy and crew hit the stage to massive roars from the crowd, opening their set with “Regular John” from their 1998 S/T album, a classic song showcasing the origins of QOTSA and right way to open the set, and in fairness, this set gives fans of every era of QOTSA something to sing along with, especially as they keep with the classics with “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret” up next from “Rated R”. Another thing to point out is that from the moment QOTSA hit the stage, the sound is perfect. In this perfectly curated set we get “Do it Again” from 2002’s “Songs for the Deaf” next, it’s like playing through the timeline of QOTSA with every song being well received by the massive crowd, but it helps when Josh’s swagger and hip shaking holds the crowd in the palm of his hands.
We then get a double hitter from “Era Vulgaris” starting with “Sick, Sick, Sick” followed quickly by the rarely heard “The Fun Machine Took a Shit and Died” which they hadn’t played live since 2014 so its a real hit with the die hard QOTSA fans. Next song of the set is “Paper Machete” from “In Times New Roman”, the whole way through the set it looks like the guys are really enjoying themselves with bassist Michael Shuman pretty much constantly headbanging when he didn’t have to add additional vocals and drummer Jon Theodore letting loose on the kit all the while smiling.
Troy then takes out his maracas for “My God is the Sun” from the catchy “…Like Clockwork” album, much to the delight of the eager fans. We get “Run, Pig, Run” quickly followed by “Little Sister” to keep the crowd dancing, there’s not much banter from the band but you don’t need it when you’re this solid.
As the set comes to a close with 3 songs from “Songs for the Deaf”, starting with “Go with the Flow” to warm up the audience’s vocal chords, as a few mosh pits open up. After Go with the Flow Josh just says “Watch this” and hits the opening chords to “No One Knows” and the whole stadium erupts into jumping mad fans and singing, so much so that Josh has no need to sing the first half of the song as the audience does it for him, he thanks use with a “I fucking love you so much”, this all builds to the finale, “A Song for the Dead”, which Jon absolutely nails on the drums.
It’s a great way to end the set, although I did later find out they had to drop a song from the setlist, it will forever remain a mystery on what song it was.
It’s another 30 minute break until System of a Down hits the stage, although it’s the quickest 30 minutes as I’m still recovering from the buzz of Queens of the Stone Age. The anticipation builds as we get closer to the main event, you can feel an electricity in the air with an atmosphere I just can’t describe so I’m just not going to try.
Daron comes on stage first to open with the melodic “Soldier Side”, chills run through my body as I take a second to catch my breath before chaos ensues. The rest of the band comes out on stage to properly kick off with “B.Y.OB” from “Mezmerize” sending the crowd into a flurry of mosh pits and fist pumping along with “the lies from the tablecloth” before breaking down into the melodic chorus for a bit of a sing along, but to the be honest, every song was a sing along, everyone here knows every lyric word for word for every single song.
Just before “Suite Pee” they properly introduce themselves “System of a Down who play System of a Down style rock n roll music”, I couldn’t have it better myself, it truly is the best way to describe their genre. So after we’re finished “Lying naked on the floor” we are straight into instructions on making a pizza pie with “Chic N Stu” from “Steal this album”, this was quickly followed up by one note and a pause and the crowd go mad as they know its time to build a prison with “Prison song” from 2001’s huge album “Toxicity”, another heavy and fast song that sets off the ever growing number of mosh pits. I would love to go into more detail about every song but with a mammoth 30 song setlist this review could go on for hours.
We are straight into another huge hit from Toxicity with “Aerials” sending the crowd into a unison of harmonic vocals, its another moment of goosebumps and chills running through my body, the set is unremitting as are the crowd, by this point I’m already drenched in sweat and loving every moment.
We do get a slight break as Daron gets some chants going and singing the chorus of “I-E-A-I-A-IO” before the song fully kicks off and of course then the stadium goes berserk again, every band member seems to be having great fun on stage, although Serj doesn’t say much you can feel the energy beaming from him with his infectious smile as he “lights up the sky” and Shavo just looks delighted as runs up and down his podium on the side of the stage.
This brings us into “Innervision” from “Steal this Album” followed by “Darts” from the 1998’s S/T album giving us some fun vocal play from both Daron and Serj with his “meow meow meow” and then System’s most recent release “Genocidal Humanoidz” which they recorded in 2020 and was greeted by the audience with lots of “Free Palestine” chants.
This brings us into a moment that has gone viral on social media in the hours that followed, Daron gets an “Ass” chant started then he tells us that he wants to name the tapeworm, and that name is Oasis, so all 50,000 start shouting “pull oasis out of your ass” which has upset some Oasis fans, anyway, this leads us into “Needle”, another classic from Toxicity which is followed directly with no break into another Toxicity classic, “Deer Dance”, although the crowd are singing every song, the next song “Radio/Video” really brings out the mass karaoke. This brings then into slight lull in the set thankfully as my knees need a break, with a shortened version of “Dreaming” from “Hypnotize” then followed up by the title track “Hypnotize”, another track easy on my knees, well, in comparison to most SOAD songs.
The guys make their way back then to the Toxicity album “ATWA” melodic and heavy this brings the adoring crowd back to life and to keep the ball Daron starts his “bounce pogo pogo pogo” chant so before they even play the first note from “Bounce” the crowd are already jumping so when the song kicks in the place is madness personified before they just go straight into “Suggestions”, keeping the chaos going, then followed by “Psycho” all blended so beautifully and seamlessly together that you’d swear it was meant to fit that way instead of being from different albums.
“Chop Suey” is next on this onslaught, probably System’s biggest hit they had in the UK or Ireland and hearing the opening riff and drums was another goosebump moment for me as I remember as a teenager (I’m still young) watching Kerrang TV and seeing this song for the first time and instantly falling in love with System of a Down. More circle pits and buckets of sweat come to a gentle end as we get “Lonely Day” followed by “Lost in Hollywood”, as we waved our hands as if we didn’t care, a truly beautiful moment of community.
“Streamline” is next on the set followed by “Spiders” as we slowly and worryingly get closer to the end of the show, these are moments in your life you just don’t want to end. We then get “Forest” from Toxicity, Serj has been pitch perfect all night and this is no different, every time the screen shows John on drums he looks so serious while the rest of the band are out there having fun but you can’t deny how good John is as he is tight all night.
Daron brings the mood down a bit as they play “Dam” from an early demo tape and telling us “they’re watching you, they’re dividing you, they’re controlling you, they’re going to replace you, they want to kill you” this brings real atmosphere and a reminder that System are and always have been an anti-war political band, of course this then leads us into “War?”, the crowd was in unison once again with wanting to fight the heathens, System have always been a fun band but always preach a strong message. They are a band that came along at the right time, metal was at a low point in the 90’s and bands like System of a Down brought it back to the spotlight and has been on an upward spiral ever since, controversial opinion I know but a hill I’m willing to die on.
“Roulette” makes a delightful and surprising appearance before they take a short break to thank all the bands that played tonight, giving a shout out to Acid Bath and Queens of the Stone Age and then a simply line sends the crowd mad, “eating seeds is a pastime activity”, we are now down to the final 2 songs, the hugely popular “Toxicity”, obviously. Daron gets the crowd going even further, just when you think it wasn’t possible, with singing “round and round everyone spinning around” sends the entire floor into a mess of circle pits. Every good thing must come to an end and tonight unfortunately has to come to an end too with “Sugar” from the 1998 S/T album, it’s a good thing they built these modern stadiums so well as the pressure was put on with the amount of people jumping both on the floor and the stands. As the night draws to an end you realise this wasn’t any normal concert, for folks like myself this was a nearly 2 hour therapy session, I came out exhausted but mentally full of strength as I wandered out with the sea of people and bananas.
No amount of writing or description can tell you how good this show was but the question is was this the last time we see System of a Down on this side of the world? Hopefully not but if it is I’m fully satisfied with the experience.
Photography – QOTSA – Owen Arnold
Photography – System of a Down – Clemente Ruiz (@clemente_310)
