System of a Down - What a Concert
Wow, last night was one of the best concerts I’ve been to in a while. Fair to Midland, Bad Acid Trip, Hatebreed, Avenged Sevenfold and System of a Down were the bands who played. Lots of people, enthusiastic bands, and a few hours of good music made the night.
So, here’s my full scoop on the concert. Around 6:30, a band got on stage and failed to identify themselves (at all - start to finish, nothing about them was said). They were actually a very good band. The vocalist was pretty amazing in my opinion, because he was going from low tenor to almost soprano-like notes and staying on key about 99% of the time. I only found out that the band was Fair to Midland when System of a Down gave a rundown and thanks to all of the bands that were there. Go out and get some of their stuff - I highly recommend it.
The second and third bands, Bad Acid Trip and Hatebreed left much to be desired. In short - they sucked…hard. They were the yelling and screaming bands - so none of their music made any sense because their mikes were way out of proportion. All of their songs sounded exactly the same, as well, which really caused my interest to drift quite quickly. We (Melissa, Tom, and myself) were more interested in making fun of the bands than actually listening to the music. They might be more interesting if they wouldn’t yell and / or would fix the mic settings so that they could be heard above ARRRGHGHHHHHHHHHHRRRRHHGGHHH - which is what is sounded like all the time with the occasional backup vocalists sounding only like dogs barking.
Avenged Sevenfold - a band I thought I had never heard before but actually have been on the radio a lot recently - was the final band before System of a Down. By this time, most of the crowd was here and it was pretty packed. Everyone was on their feet for Avenged Sevenfold, and rightfully so. Their set kicked ass. Their guitarists could pull some amazing solos (one of which, did do a guitar solo for a couple of minutes that was the best I have heard thus far), and their drummer kicked serious ass too. He did a couple of short drum solos - but nothing that seemed to emphasize his capacity and skill to the fullest. I plan on going out and getting whatever music they have and having a good listen-through of it.
Finally, System of a Down. I’ve never been to one of their concerts before, but it was a wonderful experience. Their setup was fairly simple, which was cool by me, because you don’t need laser-light / pyrotechnics to get me going. All you have to have is good music. These guys had it. They played song after song practically non-stop from their Hypnotize and Mesmerize albums, with a couple of classics thrown in there such as Sugar, Aerials, and some other songs from other albums I haven’t heard. They also did one that wasn’t on any of their albums, according to Tom. It was very different than any of their other songs, but cool none-the-less. Their guitarist, in the middle of their set, did a half-sing and half-speech about how crazy this war is, and how corrupt our government / society has become as the result of corporations. I liked that - I liked hearing the part that System of a Down didn’t belong to a corporation - and that nobody else should bow to them. The part that kind of made me shut up and wait for him to finish was when he was talking about Jesus coming back and everyone going to his crucifiction - all because Jesus doesn’t belong to a corporation. This weirded me out - in almost all of the System of a Down songs I have ever heard, they generally don’t try to push religion or religious facts onto their crowd - but in this case, they were emphasizing Christianity and the return of Jesus. I applaud them for trying to get their listeners to wake up and realize that our government is crap, war is crap, and big corporations (quoted from them: Halliburton) are crap. However, pushing religious talk like that on the crowd seems to sway them in a direction opposite what their goal is.
Despite that one erksome fact, the concert was more than worth the money we paid for. There were several people (probably about half the crowd that was there, actually) that acted like complete fucking idiots, though. This is one thing I didn’t like. Many people in the grass were getting drunk, and when Avenged Sevenfold did a cover of Pantera’s Walk (very good cover, btw), some guy took his half-full beer and tossed it into the air, covering Melissa, Me, Tom, and many other people in the grass with beer. It was totall uncalled for. There were other things that pissed Melissa off, such as people who would walk by and bump into us, kick us, or step on us accidentally and didn’t have the fucking common courtesy to apologize. These kind of people make me want to chain upside down from the top of the pavillion for the rest of the night. The last thing that I found appalling was the trash situation. When the concert was over (no encore from System, sadly), we took a look at the hillside. There was practically a sea of trash - cups (beer, soda, and water), cigarette butts, cup holders, and snack trays - all over the place. It really urks me that people would be that careless about the people that have to clean that crap up after the concert is over. Their too lazy to walk the 30 feet to the nearest trashcan to throw out their trash - so they throw it in the air - or worse yet, throw it on the ground and kick it to the person in front of them, much like some people did to us.
Anywho, the concert was awesome, but the people there make me realize how frigging sad, pothetic, lazy, and downright rude society has turned into. Why can’t everyone just act normal?
