You know those musicians out there always reminding you how they “keep it real,” when the only example of doing so is generally being irritatingly juvenile? Yeah, that’s not the kind of reality-keeping System of a Down has in mind. Much like Public Enemy, Rage Against The Machine and many others who have used their exposure as a platform for drawing attention to injustice, deceit and murder on a systemic scale, SOAD have a strong connection to humanitarian causes that go far beyond an outstretched hand.
Serj Tankian led his reunited band through an immensely powerful show in their ancestral homeland of Armenia, to close their Wake Up the Souls Tour. It was a free show in the homeland’s capital city, a show of respect and outpouring of love from the band, who are descended from survivors of the Armenian genocide. While no strangers to calling attention to the massacres and deportations that killed over a million people and displaced countless others, System have a direct current of connection to the Armenian people.
“In Armenia, our status is unparalleled,” frontman Serj Tankian told Rolling Stone of the band’s popularity. “I don’t want to use any monikers like the Beatles or anything, but it’s a unique kind of thing. So we want to go there and play for the people, which we’ve never done as System of a Down.”
Watch the entire landmark show:
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The tour, which kicked off on April 7th in Los Angeles, tributes the 1915 genocide on its 100th anniversary. “Part of it is bringing attention to the fact that genocides are still happening, whether you use the word ‘genocide,’ ‘holocaust’ or ‘humanitarian catastrophe,'” Tankian says. “None of that is changing. We want to be part of that change. We want the recognition of the first genocide of the 20th century to be a renewal of confidence that humanity can stop killing itself.”
