CONCERT REVIEW: ALL SYSTEMS WERE GO AT WORCESTER’S DCU CENTER
By CHAD BERNDTSON
For The Patriot Ledger
The Patriot Ledger, MA
Aug 31 2005
System of a Down snared its willing crowd right from the get-go,
its wacky, speed metal wares and blistering, heavily political power
rock firing on all cylinders for close to 90 minutes at Worcester’s
DCU Center.
The Armenian-descended and L.A.-raised foursome goes for the jugular
on all fronts, especially in concert: sizzling guitar entreaties,
a blinding stage display (complete with strobe lights, a distortion
mirror and trippy, faux-goth graphic elements), a frontman, Serj
Tankian, in the great tradition of flamboyant, cocksure crowd
galvanizers, and an anti-war and anti-establishment bent that they
stick to and mine for satire, comedy, drama and poignancy, often in
the same song.
Whether it was their brutal “Sad Statue,” with lines like “You and
me will all go down in history / with a sad Statue of Liberty / and a
generation that didn’t agree” slathered atop pulse-pounding rhythms,
or the ferocious “Kill Rock ‘n’ Roll” or the pointedly critical
“B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Bombs),” or a cheeky riff on size matters
called “Cigaro,” or a brief, out-of-nowhere left turn into Neil Young’s
“My My, Hey Hey,” they kept energy high and forward moving throughout.
Ripping, mosh-inducing blast-offs like “Revenga” – whose chorus of
“My sweet revenge / will be yours for the taking / It’s in the making,
baby” – were tough to deny where outright concert excitement was
concerned, and if there’s a drawback to the whole experience, it’s
that the rapidly shifting tempo changes and throttling freakouts get
a bit repetitive when left so untethered.
It will be interesting to see how System progresses in future albums.
In previewing material from its upcoming “Hypnotize,” the companion
to this year’s “Mesmerize,” it hinted at expanding its melodic palette
without dumbing down any of the lyrics or skimping on the theater.
The Mars Volta’s proclivity toward cacophonous freakouts makes them
and System at the very least musical cousins, — but their sound makes
them quite an alternative: a space ride to psychedelic continuums
compared to System’s more down-to-earth skull-burrowing.
It’s all pretty weird, but searingly virtuosic, and the group’s core
members, the histrionic singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, brought along enough percussion instruments
and seemingly disparate noisemakers (synths, electronic flutes, MIDI
saxophones, you name it) to make their 45-minute, four-song set feel
like the ultimate in musical head trips.
SYSTEM OF A DOWN/THE MARS VOLTA Saturday night at the DCU Center,
Worcester.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress