Minneapolis Star Tribune , MN
Sept 23 2005
Concert review: System of a Down is strong upper
Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune
September 24, 2005 SYSTEM0924
Most concerts have an energy level that ebbs and flows as much as a
Twins season, but not Friday night’s performance by political
neo-thrashers System of a Down at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
This one was like a marathon run at a sprinter’s pace.
You had to be 16 and high-strung to stay up to the energy level of
the 90-minute show by the Ozzfest veterans. Fortunately, most of the
10,146 fans fit that description.
The security guards who were down in front of the stage were the
hardest-working guys in town Friday night. Throughout the show, they
handled a constant flow of sweaty kids crowd-surfing over the stage
barrier, like salmon swimming upstream to spawn.
Following a solo intro of “Soldier Side” by guitarist Darion
Malakian, the concert erupted right away with SOAD’s current (and
most bombastic) single “B.Y.O.B.,” which was soon followed by the
topsy-turvy rockers “Revenga” and “Deer Dance.”
The show kept rolling at breakneck speed. By the time the band got to
its 2001 hit “Chop Suey” (a half-hour into the set), the pandemonium
stretched out into the center of the arena, where several mosh pits
broke out on the seat-less concrete floor.
Hardly just a testosterone-fueled thrash-metal band, System displayed
its many unique elements throughout the show. The stormy epic “War?”
hinted at the four members’ Armenian heritage with its moody guitar
bits and unusual tunings. The ironically brawny “Cigaro” hinted at
their sharp wit. And then there was their politics.
“They got us divided into blue and red states, but let’s make one
purple one,” Malakian said before “Sad Statue.” The song’s lyrics are
a little more poetic: “We’ll go down in history with a sad Statue
Liberty and a generation that didn’t agree.”
A week after Green Day had teenagers cursing the president at the
Xcel Center, System’s beady-eyed singer, Serj Tankian, had more of
them chanting the radical words to “Prison Song” and “Science.” That
the fans even still had the breath to sing along was the big
surprise.
Opening band the Mars Volta gave the young crowd a lesson in what too
many drugs and rock-star egotism did to ruin the ’70s. The band’s two
leaders seem so ashamed that they helped spawn emo-rock with the now
defunct At the Drive-In (actually a great band), they subjected the
crowd to 10- and 15-minute songs with no real structure and lots of
annoying saxophone outbursts, DJ static and wailing, insufferable
aria-like vocals. No thanks.