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  • Live in L.A.

    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.


    http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/23/live.php
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