Winnipeg Sun, Canada
Sept 23 2005

Live Review: SOAD in Winnipeg

Intense SOAD reward fans

By ROB WILLIAMS — Winnipeg Sun

WINNIPEG – Talk about a mesmerizing night of music.

Last night’s System of a Down show at the MTS Centre featured three
bands playing heavy, challenging, experiential metal that both
thrilled and bewildered a crowd of 8,000.

Taking the stage an hour late after being delayed by Hurricane Rita
at LAX in Los Angeles, SOAD showed why they are one of the most
unique mainstream metal acts in North America with a jarring display
of hardcore thrash mixed with Middle Eastern textures inspired by
their Armenian roots.

>From the first notes of intro Soldier Side the floor was a swirling
mass of bodies and fists. The intensity was cranked to eleven when
they launched into the war-bashing B.Y.O.B., the first single off
their latest album Mezmerize.

Frontman Serj Tankian shared vocal duties with guitarist Daron
Malakian, who handled the grittier side of things while ripping
through the intricate guitar lines that make up their socio-political
manifests.

Bassist Shavo Odajian and drummer John Dolmayan were put to work
keeping up with the abrupt pauses, fractured rhythms, tempo
variations and time signature changes that make up the group’s
arsenal.

The set was heavy on material from Mezmerize and their 2001
breakthrough Toxicity, although they threw in a few numbers off their
1998 debut.

At press time the band were about half-way through their 90-minute
set getting the crowd airborne with Bounce.

Before SOAD, The Mars Volta tore through a one-hour set featuring
only four songs of absurdist avant-garde prog-metal and cerebral
psychedelia.

The Texas group performed as an eight-piece, including three
percussionists and two keyboardists, but the main focus was on
vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez,
formerly of emo-heroes At the Drive In. They may have ditched the
sound of their former band, but it’s nice to see they kept their
famous afros.

Bixler-Zavala was a madman on stage howling in English and Spanish
while convulsing like the bastard child of Iggy Pop. Rodriguez-Lopez
stood beside him at centre stage tearing through solos and thrashing
his guitar above a roaring wall of drums, horns and effects.

Each song was its own sprawling mini-epic, starting slowly and
building to a cacophonous climax before calming down to a dull roar
and rising again. For a similar effect smash a brick into your head,
relax with a therapeutic massage then beat yourself stupid.

As strange as some might have found The Mars Volta, opening act Hella
were just as mind bending.

The Sacramento, Calif. duo of Spencer Seim and Zach Hill, on guitar
and drums respectively, added a bassist and keyboardist-guitarist to
expand on their experimental noise rock.

Without following the traditional verse-chorus-verse structure, Hella
were anything but linear, venturing into adventurous spastic freak
outs of thrash, surf, electronica, jazz and no wave anchored by
Hill’s out-of-control non-stop drumming.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress