we went with twiddle thumbs's little sister and boyfriend to go see system of a down play at the long beach arena. we just got back. damn it was good! well, system was good. the opening bands were not good.

bad acid trip was the first opening band and they were basically a bad knock-off of system of a down. i had heard that they are crap and it's true. we were in the front area on the left side of the stage, daron's side, but to the left of daron. we were bored so we went to walk around to check out the merchandise and see if there was something we could snack on. we came back to hear the next band, the mars volta, who are really popular right now. i was curious to hear them live because i had heard one of their albums before and didn't like it. they are even worse live. they are like a bad knock-off of led zeppelin and i hate led zeppelin. they are a noise band. they don't make music. their songs are way too long and don't seem to have a point to them. i am not against songs whose length is 10 minutes or more but there must be a flow, a building of tension, of layers, progression, etc. they really don't have that. they don't know when to end a song so they just keep going on and on. on top of that, i don't like that 'balls in a vice' style of singing. a shaggy scruffy john frusciante joined them for a song. like he's any better a musician. seeing system up close is not worth this pain. we left to walk around some more. we only went back once they were off the stage.

there was a huge curtain with the "mezmerize" cover image on it. the show started with the spotlight on daron singing "soldier side" so that you could only see his silhouette. then the curtain came down, they blasted into "byob", and the crowd went wild. the band went from song to song without much pause inbetween. sometimes daron would sing an intro relating to the song. the only down moments were during the slower songs, "mr. jack" and "lost in hollywood", but it was good to have a break to rest inbetween the fast songs. there were some special touches to a few of the songs where they added some extra flavor which sounded great. when the last song "sugar" started playing, the crowd got a new surge of energy and started bouncing around like crazy. the lights come on and so does the background music. no encore. but there was no need to. they delivered an awesome show. a long set. the band was excellent, everyone's playing was right on.

system fucking rocks!

after the show, we thought there was no way in hell that we would get to meet any of the member but there was a gate for the cars to enter the secure area and some people had already started gathering there. so we joined them. some member of the mars volta walked by and a couple of the guys from bad acid trip. john frusciante walked out to get to his car in the parking lot and was an asshole and didn't acknowledge his fans who were right there, typical of the peppers. a lot of people with various passes kept walking in and out in big groups. damn, who are these people? contest winners? friends? the band is from LA so you do expect the numbers on the guest list to be huge. eventually john from system was visible. he was talking to some people and we shouted for him. he very quickly grabbed a pen and walked over to us. no other member did that. we didn't have to beg or call out many times. he just walked right over and talked, signed stuff, took pictures. really nice guy. my digital camera is not so great for taking low-light pictures and our picture came out blurry. too bad. later we saw serj get into his mercedes with his australian model girlfriend. he only waved to the crowd once while he was speeding out of the gate but it looked more like he was trying to cover his face. uh, whatever dude.

while we were hanging out and waiting for members of system, we talked to this kid. "i'm not a kid, i'm an adult!" uh, no you're not. you have teen in your age. you cannot buy a drink. you are not an adult. long story short, twiddle thumbs's sister cannot go to the san diego show on saturday that i bought tickets for. without her, her pussy boyfriend doesn't want to go anymore. so we need to sell 2 tickets. this kid will buy one but we have to give him a ride down there. fine. now we got to find one other kid. who will the lucky sucker be?

us, john, and my shitty digital camera in night mode

setlist:
soldier side
byob
revenga
know
needles
deer dance
suggestions
psycho
chop suey
kill rock n' roll
sad statue
violent pornography
mr. jack
cigaro
bounce
atwa
this cocaine makes me feel like i'm on this song
forest
lost in hollywood
question!
war?
prison song
aerials
toxicity
science
suite-pee
sugar