Classic Concert of the Day: System of a Down, Reading Festival, 2001

You’re all cooped up. We’re all cooped up. Everyone’s friggin’ cooped up! You’re scrolling through our social feeds, texting with friends, eating, drinking coffee, watching TV, scrolling through our social feeds again, eating again, playing that dumb mobile game you downloaded from an Instagram ad and can’t stop playing, eating again, chatting with friends on a Zoom call, scrolling through our social feeds again, all while worrying about where your next paycheck is gonna come from. These are tough times, people.

To help pass the time, we’ll be sharing a classic metal concert every day (and by “every day,” we mean “as it occurs to us”). Watch some of it, watch all of it, watch only one song… we don’t care! As it long as it provides you with a bit of entertainment.

Continuing with this series’ theme of focusing on bands that have recently been forced to cancel or postpone shows or tours, today we revisit a classic performance by System of a Down, who recently called off their L.A. stadium shows with Korn and Faith No More. Specifically, we’re gonna take a look at System of a Down’s performance at the Reading Festival in Little John’s Farm Reading, England on August 26, 2001. For context: that was roughly a week before the release of Toxicity, the album that would cement SOAD’s status as A-listers. Needless to say, the forty-minute was very heavy on Toxicity material, even though the crowd hadn’t heard the album yet. Which didn’t seem to deter from them from raising hell regardless!

Try this philosophy: