Following the weekend of San Francisco’s annual festival Outside Lands, the Golden Gate Park hosted 50,000 people for another day of music on August 17, though this time the event attracted a crowd of metal and rock enthusiasts rather than thousands of indie and pop lovers. This one day, five act festival sold out within minutes thanks to headliners System of a Down and Deftones with supporting acts Viagra Boys, The Mars Volta and VOWWS.
Shavo Odadjian of System of a Down
The city seemed to sense the thousands of rock and metalheads flocking to see the show, as it set the atmospheric mood with spurts of rain and a pillowy fog. The gloomy day began with gothic death-pop band VOWWS. The Australian duo cast a dark veil of spooky synths and murky vocals that settled into the foggy mist lingering above the crowd. The duo’s set was littered with a number of unreleased songs including “SHUDDER,” “PRAGUE,” and “PULLS ME APART.” Despite an enchanting performance, the crowd was a bit quiet, either because they were spooked into silent submission or conserving their energy for the acts to come; attendance numbers were also a bit sparse, perhaps due to the merchandise lines stretching across the venue with hundreds of people eager to claim something of their own from this legendary show.
Sebastian Murphy of Viagra Boys
The crowd began to warm up against the chill of the day with Viagra Boys, a rather unhinged bunch sporting booty shorts and bare (or should I say beer?) bellies. Lead singer Sebastian Murphy dramatically strutted and crawled across the floor, occasionally showering himself with a glass bottle of Modelo and sputtering the liquid from his open mouth across the stage and into the mic as he sang.
Oskar Carls of Viagra Boys
The group put on a frenetic show, striking poses, downing champagne and beer, puffing cigarettes, and stripping layers of clothes. Highlight songs from this high energy set included “Sports,” “Slow Learner,” and “ADD.”
Progressive rock band The Mars Volta took the stage next. The group shined across a spread of genres, incorporating psychedelic rock, Latin jazz, and funk into their music. The set showcased the range of their mixed work as they alternated between heavier rock songs like “Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)” and songs that meshed Latin jazz rhythms and quick paced rock like “L’Via L’Viaquez.”
Besides the musical composition and performance aspects, a highlight from their set came from the lead singer Cedric Bixler- Zavala, who shouted “Free Palestine” while acknowledging the Palestinian flags floating around the crowd.
Chino Moreno of Deftones
The crowd was anxious with anticipation before Deftones arrived on stage and sliced the tension with an eruptive set of heavy head bangers and tear jerkers.
The band exploded into one of their most popular songs “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” to start, and transitioned from there into another hit, “My Own Summer (Shove it).” Songs like “Cherry Waves” and “Change (In the House of Flies)” were sure to make the raindrops smeared across fans faces indistinguishable from their potential tears, though the tears of girls who were thrown over the barricade to escape the chaos of the mosh pits were decidedly less ambiguous. With tracks “Swerve City,” “Digital Bath,” “Rosemary,” and “7 Words,” the crowd was left on a high, ready for the closing act to begin.
Chino Moreno of Deftones
System of a Down finished out the night with a jam-packed 25 song set. As this was only their second show of the year since their appearance at the Sick New World Festival, fans were buzzing with excitement to catch sight of this rarity. For the first time ever, the band’s newest song from 2020, “Genocide Humanoidz” served as their opener, followed by their track “Suite-Pee.”
As stated by the band’s guitarist and vocalist Daron Malakian, the group has a bundle of “sweet songs” like “Hypnotize,” but also flaunts songs like “Needles,” which urges in its lyrics to “pull the tapeworm out of your ass.” How sweet is that?!
Shavo Odadjian of System of a Down
The set was full of hits like “Chop Suey!” and “BYOB” that had the crowd in a frenzy of moshing and head banging. Legendary vocalist Serj Tankian led the group through a set that stretched across decades of their work to satisfy a crowd of die-hard SOAD lovers who screamed along with the lyrics to every song they performed.
The end of the show marked another successful weekend hosted at Golden Gate Park by Another Planet Entertainment. Hopefully the success of this event serves as an incentive for more concerts and festivals of the like to commence in the future in San Francisco.
Serj Tankian of System of a Down
Article and Photos by Bailey Schroerlucke