Thought I would share our unique experience on Saturday.
We were from out of state and stayed at a hotel in National City on Saturday night. After the show we stopped at the Denny's by the hotel for a late dinner. As we were finishing our meal, an elderly couple came in and sat in a booth by the door. A few minutes later a younger couple came in and joined them. As we walked past the table to leave the older gentleman asked my wife how she enjoyed the show. We told him we loved it and he said, "we are Darin's parents and he will be very pleased to know that you enjoyed the show."
His parents were so cool. They asked a ton of questions about where we were from, where we were staying and we even briefly discussed the boycott of Arizona. You could tell that they are very proud of their son. I think the best part was when his mom said that they were honored and grateful that we had travelled from out of state to see her son play his music.
Just a very cool way to end the evening.

Got to the ampitheatre around 6:20... there was already a huge line. I thought I wasn't gonna be able to get close... but once I got in I basically ran towards the pit. Ended up in the second row from the stage, super close... not bad! Anyway before the concert I had to listen to this idiot behind me talk about how Serj was "the brainchild" of System, and then he criticized Serj's new facial hair. It was an epic facepalm moment. Gogol Bordello came on at 8:00, and they actually put on a pretty good show. Granted, everyone was actually there for System, with the exception of two really annoying Gogol Bordello fans in front of me who kept jumping up and down and dancing like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xi4O1yi6b0... which was extremely irritating, especially when they kept jumping up and down onto my feet. Gogol got the most cheers when Serj came to the side of the stage to watch and then when the lead singer said in his russian accent: "ARE YOU GUYS READY FOR THE SYSTEM OF DOWN??!?!" Finally, they left and the giant curtain dropped for System. Most people made finger puppets with the shadows projected onto the screen. Around 9:15 I saw a hat and a guitar behind the curtain. Daron!!! Suddenly, the first note of Prison Song hit, and then the band was illuminated behind the curtain as sillhouettes. People went NUTS. Daron was super crazy and kept spitting everywhere, Serj was making all sorts of weird facial expressions with his eyes. Shavo had a hat on and was jamming out. I was right between Serj's and Daron's mics, a little closer to Serj's. At one point Serj went over and put his arm around Shavo's shoulder, and they both smiled. I wish they turned Daron's guitar up a little louder, it was hard to hear for the first few songs and should have still been louder for the rest. Shavo's bass was awesome though, it might be inaudible on some of the records but live it just dominates. After Prison Song in a high pitched voice Serj was like "WE MISSED YOU!" and it was pretty cool. Before Needles Daron sang that cool thing where he goes "PULL THE TAPEWORM OUT OF YOUR ASS" over and over. Deer Dance was actually surprisingly heavy, they played it much slower than they used to live, and Daron and Shavo were headbanging like the good old days. Also, it's worth noting that during Know, when the lyrics say "to the other siiiiide," Daron and Shavo switched sides of the stage briefly. By now I had been pushed up basically into the front row railing by all the people behind me. Daron and I made eye contact during Kill Rock n Roll (When he said "YOUR ROCK AND ROLL") and then during Tentative, he saw me singing along and smiled. I think Serj was looking at me at one point during Lost in Hollywood, but it was hard to tell because his eyes were mostly half closed. The Mountain backdrop they used is so awesome in person, really detailed and awesome looking (and just gigantic). Really helped set the mood. Also these two people in the crowd had laser pointers and so at some points of the set they would move them around on the back screens in sync with the rhythm (during Hypnotize and Radio/Video I think). Before Tentative, Daron said really fast "This song was tentatively titled Tentative!" and then he looked at Serj and smiled, and then Serj laughed. Before Holy Mountains Serj gave a speech about Genocide and Pepsi (I have it on video) while Daron played a riff that sounded like DAM. During Toxicity, Daron took a break during the second verse where he normally plays a solo and instead went to drink some orange juice . John threw his bottle of Fiji water into the crowd and some of it hit me! Uh, what else. Serj's screams were awesome and he only did the super high ones rarely. During Suggestions he played a solo on his Kaoss pad. John did some awesome drum fills too, especially in Holy Mountains. Daron was all over the place, crawling on the floor and spitting, flicking us off and spinning around. At one point he pretended to be maneuvering a puppet! At the end of the concert he threw his guitar on the ground and just started smacking it with his hands. Then he grabbed his orange juice, bowed, and left! Afterwards I stayed behind and looked through some of the trash on the ground, and I found one of Serj's picks! Green dunlop like Daron usually uses, except with the Elect the Dead eye on the back! All in all, a great show and I'm glad I went.

SERJ SPEECH/DARON JAM + HOLY MOUNTAINS HD VIDEO COMING SOON

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