I turned down £170 System of a Down tickets for a £12 tribute act. Was it worth it?

City AM

We can all recall a piece of music that, on first listening, irreversibly rewired our minds. I can vividly remember mine.

One night in early 1999, my friend Russ cycled five miles through the night to drop off three CDs with me. One of them was the debut album of US rock band System of a Down. Its raw, byzantine sound consumed me as I listened ad nauseam. The predominant emotion was relief. I’d finally found something I adored. A sonic boom I could tether my teenage uncertainties to.

In May of that year, they came to the UK for the first time. Their opening show was in Wolverhampton, up the road. Russ still talks about it as the gig of a lifetime. The energy on stage was febrile. Four men, not yet at the height of their powers, tearing through space and sound, dispatching elegant political rage. I don’t have many regrets, but missing that show... I was 14 and the £12 ticket was more than I could afford.

Fast forward to January 2026 and another friend called me with good news: “I’ve got us tickets to System!” he yelled down the phone. “Brilliant. How much do I owe you?”

Now, I know that bands must make their living from live shows nowadays, but charging £170 for a gig ticket is a line in vulgarity. Ditto the billion-pound stadium venue, with its exclusionary golden circle, sullen security staff and plastic pints of piss. The ocean of phones blocking your view doesn’t help.

To then learn that anti-establishment SOAD were in cahoots with Ticketmaster – and had opted for dynamic pricing – was close to heartbreaking.

For context, I know someone who works for Ticketmaster and he attests that they are as reprehensibly amoral as we all suspect. Naked avarice and corporate cynicism churned at an industrial scale to exploit our romance with live music.

I find it difficult to enjoy myself under these circumstances, so I did the unthinkable and turned the ticket down.

Then, on the same weekend, I saw a poster in a pub toilet for a System of a Down tribute act. It’s difficult not to get a little woo-woo when this sort of thing happens and I comforted myself with the certainty that this was a portent from the gods of heavy metal. Or Ozzy.

‘Chop Suey’ (named after the band’s most famous song) were playing in my home town of Margate on the following weekend. But I’d already committed to seeing White Lies – remember them? – at London’s Roundhouse, so I couldn’t go. I looked up their other shows: Cheltenham, in a fortnight, on a Thursday.

Four hours’ drive there, four hours back – on a school night. It was a big ask. But I’m a single, childless man and I had £170 in my pocket. Sort of. So I got in the car and drove cross-country to see Chop Suey tear the house down at The Frog & Fiddle.

I walked into the bar and made my way to the venue at the back. Mr Clipboard started shaking his head before I could finish my sentence. “Totally sold out I’m afraid, mate,” he said. The level of idiocy involved in not buying a ticket ahead of time is difficult to quantify, but there it is.

“What about if someone doesn’t show?” I replied, clearly deflated. “I can’t see that happening.” I sipped a Guinness Zero at the bar as the blistering peal of the opening band – ‘Slip-Not’, no less – made the walls shake.

At the end of their set, I went back to Gary Gatekeeper, this time explaining my story. “Look, sorry mate, but there’s nothing I can do.” Another pitiful pint went down as I contemplated the decisions that had led me to the Frog & f**king Fiddle.

One more try before leaving, why not? He thought about it for a second, sighed, then tipped his head to the side to signal that I could pass. What followed was a halcyon hour of joy. I screamed along to every song: “I cry when angels deserve to die!”

I’ve always been a bit snooty about tribute acts but there is, I now realise, something special about them. Everyone in the room, musicians included, is a fan. And so there’s a pleasing feeling of reciprocity that you don’t get when your heroes levitate asymmetrically above you. To that end, it felt more like a distorted cèilidh than a gig. The mosh pit couldn’t have been a more smiley space. I finished with a few sweaty hugs and made my way out.

The poster on the door read: “The UK’s best SOAD and Slipknot tributes. Price: £12.”