“We have a song about a tapeworm,” beams System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian, introducing the wild polka of ‘Needles’. “Today, I’m going to name the tapeworm ‘Oasis’,” he continues, before inciting 50,000 pumped-up fans in a bellowing chant of “PUUUULL OASIS OUT OF YOUR ASS”. It’s a decades-long feud after Noel Gallagher famously told US radio in the early ‘00s of his relief after first hearing SOAD, thinking: “I’m actually alive to hear the shittiest band of all time.” Ouch.

When Noel made those comments at the height of ‘Toxicity’, none could have predicted the trajectory of these Armenian-American political metal weirdos. Disbanding in 2006 after reaching arena level after five acclaimed albums, before returning to endless festival rounds in 2010, we now find ourselves here. With only a couple of new songs and a well-known struggle to make a follow-up album, it’s largely down to TikTok and viral footage of the circle pit mania they inspire that they find themselves selling out stadiums across Europe in 2026 – that same phenomenon that now has Deftones and KoRn back at the top of bills.

Themselves an arena-filling, festival-headlining rock beast, Queens Of The Stone Age acting as opener only heightens the sense of occasion. You’ll rarely catch them on a stage with the sun still beating down, but they seize that moment by coming out to Starlight Vocal Band’s feel-good classic ‘Afternoon Delight’ over footage of Josh Homme and co’s faces warping like a bad acid trip.

They intersperse the hard-raging bangers like ‘Sick, Sick, Sick’, ‘My God Is The Sun’ and ‘Little Sister’ with some of their more desert-wandering esoteric numbers like ‘Regular John’, ‘The Fun Machine Took a Shit and Died’ and ‘Run, Pig, Run’, which seems a smart move. It showcases a lesser-sung side of QOTSA while complementing the weirder edges of SOAD and ultimately controls the temperature to keep folk from killing each other. Then, the crowds spiral for the brutal one-two-three punch closing of ‘Go With The Flow’, ‘No One Knows’ and ‘A Song For The Dead’ as an on-fire Homme calls upon London to “make yourself a night you’ll never remember.” We oblige.

“We are System Of A Down from Los Angeles, California via Armenia, and this is the System Of A Down style of rock’n’roll,” offers Malakian. From the soulful lament of fallen warriors on opener ‘Soldier Side’ and the mass furious questioning of “Why do they always send the poor?” on ‘B.Y.O.B.’ atop visuals calling out our modern passive approach to ‘HUMAN SUFFERING, NOW IN 4K!’, it’s clear from the opening that this ain’t gonna be your standard stadium fare.

Whether barking back frontman Serj Tankian’s lines about “abolishing mandatory minimum sentences” in turning the US into one giant prison, or ‘Deer Dance’ calling out police brutality (“Pushing little children with their fully-automatics, they like to push the weak around”), the audience came to mosh to a message – and there aren’t a lot of bands offering that right now. “Pardon us for being angry,” Malakian apologises, “but the world is kinda fucked.”

Tankian, Malakian and bassist Shavo Odadjian play like they’re all competing to be frontman, with drummer John Dolmayan the stone-faced wall at the back. Spirits are high in the band, with even a tender “I love you man” from the guitarist to the singer. We may not need a new album with enough nights like this. Give us that absolutely crazy reaction to ‘Chop Suey’, the fevered dance of ‘Bounce’ and the spine-chilling respite of ‘Spiders’ over and over.

Tonight is similar to Oasis only in that every single person in this place is going totally ape-shit from start to finish, but System Of A Down ultimately defy and redefine what stadium rock is and can be. The circle pits don’t relent throughout, but we know what we’ve been waiting for. “I’m sure you’ve seen this part of the show before on Instagram or bullshitgram,” says Malakian before another viral-worthy series of human whirlpools kick off for ‘Toxicity’ into closer ‘Sugar’. “Do you feel the moment?” he yells. That’s what it’s about. And that you were lucky enough to be alive to see SOAD smash a stadium. Shove that up your ass.

Queens Of The Stone Age played:

‘Regular John’
‘The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret’
‘Do It Again’
‘Sick, Sick, Sick’
‘The Fun Machine Took a Shit and Died’
‘Paper Machete’
‘My God Is the Sun’
‘Run, Pig, Run’
‘Little Sister’
‘Go With The Flow’
‘No One Knows’
‘A Song for the Dead’

System Of A Down played:

‘Soldier Side – Intro’
‘B.Y.O.B.’
‘Suite-Pee’
‘Chic ‘N’ Stu’
‘Prison Song’
‘Aerials’
‘I-E-A-I-A-I-O’
‘Innervision’
‘Darts’
‘Genocidal Humanoidz’
‘Needles’
‘Deer Dance’
‘Radio/Video’
‘Dreaming’
‘Hypnotize’
‘ATWA’
‘Bounce’
‘Suggestions’
‘Psycho’
‘Chop Suey!’
‘Lonely Day’
‘Lost in Hollywood’
‘Streamline’
‘Spiders’
‘Forest’
‘DAM’
‘War?’
‘Roulette’
‘Toxicity’
‘Sugar’