Over the Labor Day weekend, I attended my fourth SYSTEM OF A DOWN concert! This represented my first concert at Daley’s Bathtub aka Soldier’s Field, home of the NFL’s Chicago Bears, and I have yet to watch a football game in the remodeled financial boondoggle. I selected Section 309 – upper deck and looking west – for the unobstructed downtown view and possible sunset images splashed onto glass high rises. The first band, Polyphia, a mostly instrumental progressive rock group from Texas, entertained thousands as the sun shone upon us with a clear, blue sky. Polyphia is much more than (narcissistic) shred work. Guitarists and founding members, Tim Henson and Scot LePage, combine their melodic lines every tune to create prog in 2025. Four stars. I saw a lot of t-shirts for the next band, Avenged Sevenfold, and I sat amongst Avenged Sevenfold fans, including a mom with her teenage and pre-teen sons; they knew many A7X songs and words. This rock band’s video graphics on three enormous screens blew me away! Larger screens than Lolla? The visual displays of having band members morph, projecting animated images (like a skeleton playing a sax while on fire), changing color schemes in a blink, and overall presentation deserves high praise.
SYSTEM OF A DOWN is an Armenian, alternative/nu metal band from Los Angeles. SOAD has achieved significant commercial success. Mezmerize, their last studio release (2005), debuted at #1 on Billboard. Sweden’s Prime Minister, Magdalena Andersson, is a huge fan (https://www.loudersound.com/news/swedens-prime-minister-is-a-huge-fan-of-system-of-a-down). The band toured South America for the first time in a decade earlier this year. Playing at sold-out stadium shows, an estimated 75,000 rabid fans peacefully assembled in Sao Paulo, Brazil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVTdc2Cc6bM. In Chicago, approximately 48,000 fans entered the bathtub. I attended SOAD’s Chicago debut at Ozzfest in the previous century, a show with The Deftones, and Open Air accompanied by Ghost and Meshuggah.
SYSTEM OF A DOWN is a rare band for me in that I pay attention to their lyrical themes and content in addition to the music. While blending Armenian folk melodies with numerous rock styles (Fugazi plays Rush or The Beatles and Slayer had a baby, according to Wikipedia), a handful of songs from the concert immediately come to mind such as Toxicity (environmentalism); Prison Song (for-profit prison industry/War on Drugs/mass incarceration…think Alligator Alley in 2025); B.Y.O.B (“Why don’t presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?”); Hypnotize (Tiananmen Square); and, Soldier Side. Here is a setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/stats/average-setlist/system-of-a-down-23d69cd7.html?year=2025 SOAD’s overarching lyrical theme includes an intense revulsion to the godless permanent war economy and its merchants of death.
SYSTEM OF A DOWN has furthered my knowledge regarding the Armenian Genocide of 1915-16 when the Ottoman Turkish Empire meticulously planned the extermination of its Christian Armenian citizenry and slaughtered more than one million Armenians. At least another one million people were permanently exiled from their homeland of more than 2,500 years. The assessment of genocide should not be confused with any semblance of a “civil war” because the Turks intentionally targeted an unarmed, stateless minority population (1948-present – we witness Gaza and the West Bank). The Turkish government then proceeded to deflect, obfuscate, misinform, disinform, and deny the Armenian Genocide (Sound familiar, Zionists?). Serj Tankian on X @serjtankian serves as my primary source for the ongoing onslaught of the Armenian people in Europe. These days, the aggressor, Azerbaijan, must at a minimum release political prisoners, stop home demolitions and land theft, cease the bloodshed, receive sanctions, etc., (Sound familiar, IDF/Bibi?). “Liar, killer, demon.” I object to my taxes being spent on genocide and so does SYSTEM OF A DOWN.
