Live in L.A.
By Siran Babayan

LA Weekly
APR. 29 – MAY 5, 2005

SYSTEM OF A DOWN at the Gibson Amphitheater, April 24

System of a Down performed their third annual Souls concert tonight,
benefiting ANCA (the Armenian National Committee), as well as other
human rights organizations, while commemorating the 90th anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide. Unfortunately, this was lost on the drunken
slut in the striped shirt who flashed her boobs. (Could have used an
Armenian mother to beat her into shame with a slipper.) Politics and
profoundly inappropriate behavior aside, System kept the sermonizing
short and let pretty much the best of their discography do the talking,
from “P.L.U.C.K.,” off their self-titled debut to Toxicity’s “Needles”
to Steel This Album’s “Mr. Jack.” Cuts from the forthcoming Mezmerize
were also previewed, including the current single “B.Y.O.B,” a party
song that really smart-bombs its targets (“Why don’t presidents fight
the war?/Why do they always send the poor?”) accompanied by the most
violent, urgent music the band’s ever made.

Serj Tankian shouldn’t sing on a rock & roll stage but in a church
choir that accepts men with long hair; all that monkish moaning on
“Aerials” made even the Gibson feel like a monastery. Still, unlike
that of a certain one-named Irishman, Tankian’s Mother Teresa complex
hasn’t rendered him totally annoying. By contrast, guitarist Daron
Malakian is more the court jester of the bunch, jumping around on
his imaginary hop-scotch grid, tossing his hair as if mugging for a
L’Oreal commercial. (Yes, he’s worth it.)

The folk song “Sardarabad,” a sentimental Souls finale, sounded
even more poignant this year in front of a backdrop of Ara Oshagan’s
black-and-white photographs of genocide survivors. Also worth noting,
though, was the odd use of Wham’s “Everything She Wants” as an intro
to “Sugar,” perhaps the only song ever written about “the kombucha
mushroom people.” “We didn’t start this band to change the world,”
said guitarist Daron Malakian. “We didn’t start this band to change
your mind. We started this band to make you ask questions.” Well,
Daron, when you come up with such wonderfully wacky content on drugs,
war, prison, groupies, pogo-ing, your ancestors’ injustices, their
ancestors’ injustices, George Michael, etc., we don’t need to ask why.