Ελληνικά
The European leg of System of a Down’s Wake up the Souls Tour counts only seven dates and I am lucky enough to live in one of the selected countries that plays host to the US-based Armenian metal band. Not only that, their Belgian show was sold out in no less than seven minutes. I’m a lucky bastard, I know. Wake Up The Souls is not just some kind of reunion tour for the SOAD members. It is the most politically inspired music tour I have ever seen. It has been a 100 years since roughly 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire in 1915. A mass extermination in which also more than 500.000 Ottoman Greeks found their deaths. The band’s main goal is to raise awareness of these horrible events in human history as particularly Turkey does not fully recognize what happened. Belgium formally recognized the Armenian genocide in 1998, while Greece already did so in 1996. In 2014 Greece even made the denial of the genocide a crime. The 100th anniversary stirs also in the larger media as recently the Pope in Rome formally called the killings a genocide. A statement that immediately caused Turkey to call back his ambassador from Vatican City. The fact that the political message of the band should be clear was also tested by the reporters swarming the entrance area of the venue interviewing fans to see what they actually know about these events in history and if we care about it or just show up for the music. SOAD anyway chose to keep it to the point. The three parts of their 2-hour show were introduced by animated videos narrating the events that went down, showing atrocities of mass graves and public killing of women, children and men, while not holding back to point the finger at Nazi Germany and Turkey’s denial of the crimes. While some fans watched and listened intensely supporting the band’s cause, others took the time to go for a beer or take a piss. In between the songs SOAD never took extra time to preach about their cause. Serj Tankian only briefly thanked Belgium for the recognition of the genocide and Daron Malakian formally stated that System of a Down does not hate Turkish people. A small but important notion because reading the comment sections on many SOAD videos these days you instantly get pulled into hate speeches by radical fans or internet trolls condemning every living soul on Turkish soil.
Moving away from the whole political agenda surrounding the concert, I can conclude SOAD did not overdo it. They definitely choose to focus on the music as well and we were treated with one hit after another resulting in an extensive show of no less than 33 songs. As the center square was quickly flooded I had to take place on the higher tribunes. From there I had a great overview of the 8000 people warming up themselves with a long series of Mexican waves. After the first animated video SOAD kicked off with Holy Mountains. Little rest is given us as we are bombarded with more of SOAD’s shorter intense work with songs as Jet Pilot, Radio/Video and Needles. An early highlight is without a doubt B.Y.O.B., SOAD’s massive hit from 2005. Mosh pits explode everywhere in the center square and people nog longer seem to be using the chairs on the tribunes. Serj Tankian is supported by thousands of voices singing along to the classic lyrics ‘Everybody’s going to the party / have a real good time / dancing in the dessert blowing up the sunshine’. While I feared the live quality of Tankian’s vocals because of some disappointing live clips, no signs of weakness were seen this night. The brutal roars, the high screams (think B.Y.O.B.’s ‘FREEDOM!’), or the frantic blabbering SOAD’s lyrics are known for, they were performed top-notch. And also the crowd lend their voices during the chorus of I-E-A-I-A-I-O, while some fans even pulled off the tong twisting “Peter’s pecker picked another pickle bearing pussy pepper”.
The second half of the show featured more of SOAD’s ‘ballads’ like Lonely Day, Lost in Hollywood and personal favorite Mr. Jack. An amazing view from the tribunes to see the venue filled with old school lighters or more modern cell phone screens during these more intimate moments. Also SOAD’s biggest hit Chop Suey! was thrown in in this part raising the temperature to new heights. In the last part of the show the speed was picked up again with songs like War? or Chic ‘N’ Stu. Toxicity was kept as the last major hit for his part of the show and after 33 songs we could not be anything less than satisfied. The complete lack of interaction with the audience is mainly made up by the show’s intensity. An evening of pure nostalgia were I was thrown back to younger days were I was just discovering the whole metal genre and jumping along with SOAD’s albums in my bedroom as a teenager. My parents hoped it would pass. Well, more than 10 years later I was jumping just as crazily with 8000 others and having the time of my life.
