“This is not a war zone, this is not a riot, this is a System Of A Down concert in Brazil!”: Aerial footage of Sao Paulo System mega-gig goes viral

System Of A Down have found themselves going viral. Not because of new music, mind you – the band haven’t released an album in 20 years – but due to footage from a recent gig in Brazil.

The band played the Autodromo de Interlagos in Sao Paulo the weekend before last to over 75,000 fans. They’re still huge in South America and the gig sold out within minutes. After the concert the group uploaded two clips onto social media of aerial shots of the show taken by a drone. As you can see, they really are something else.

They like their flares in Brazil, don’t they?

In the UK, health and safety would be having kittens. But the band don’t seem to mind. Indeed in one of the clips you can hear guitarist Daron Malakian declare: “If you noticed, we don’t have pyro on the stage. But our fans bring the fucking fire!”

He later wrote on Twitter/X: “This is not a war zone, this is not a riot, this is a System Of A Down style Rock & Roll concert in Brazil!”

Clearly the band are still popular. Whether they’ll ever treat their huge audience to a new album is another matter entirely. Since they reformed in 2011, System have only released two new tracks – both one-off singles in 2020: Protect The Land and Genocidal Humanoidz.

Last autumn, though, in an interview with The Sun, frontman Serj Tankian appeared to raise fans hopes, saying: “I would say if System ever decided to make a record, it would be a fresh start in a brand new way, in a beautiful new direction.”

However, a few months later, guitarist Daron Malakian appeared to throw cold water on this when he spoke with Rick Rubin on his Tetragrammaton podcast: “It would have been nice to see where the band would have evolved if we kept putting music out. If we put out an album now, it’s just so far away from (2005’s Mezmerize and Hypnotize albums) it doesn’t continue the story to me.”

He continued, explaining that starting a “new story” with the band “might have been something I wanted” in the past, but now, “I’m not sure how much I want that anymore – I’m sure people won’t be too happy to hear that from me. I’m not at the same place I was maybe 10 years ago.”