System of a Clown
The Shrine
August 6, 2026
I took on the assignment to review System of a Clown at the Shrine in Tulsa last week with a mix of confidence and dread. This band is exactly what you think it is, and even though I was the perfect person to review a clown-themed nu-metal tribute, I gotta say I wasn’t looking forward to it.
I’ve covered Tulsa’s juggalo community in the past and have a house decorated with vintage clowns. My friends subconsciously associate me with the word clussy (whose obvious definition you may google at your own risk) and I have facilitated multiple nu-metal tribute shows paying homage to Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, and Armenia’s own System of a Down.
So a show by L.A.-based System of a Clown should be up my alley, but clowns and nu-metal are a nuanced love for me. I prefer the ethereal hauntology of Depression-era clown aesthetics over the tacky “psycho” varieties. And though I am nostalgic for nu-metal, a fat portion of the genre trafficked in straight-up wackness, and SoaD’s “wacky” songs are a main offender.
I guess you could say I’m allergic to wicked-wackiness, but I’ll settle for “snob.” That’s why I was blown away by System of a Clown.
My partner and Clussy-Queen, Ollie, loves brutalizing me with SoaD’s wackiest songs, the ones about pizza, penises, and terracotta pie. I, on the other hand, love them for their politically-charged and Pangea-spanning multi-genre panache. Nu-metal’s Petri dish cultured multiple strains, most prominently the fun rap rock and extreme metal-forward varieties. SoaD married both specimens in a two-headed fetus resplendent in traditional Armenian folk music, blast beats, guttural vocals, thrash, and lyrical depth.
For my teenage self to learn about the CIA’s hand in the crack epidemic from a song with disco beats and lines about “smacking my bitch in Hollywood” was incredible. That this song was on a major label is a miracle. And both of these facts speak to my delight that System of a Clown opened their Tulsa show with “Prison Song.”
True to advertising, they showed up in clown attire and makeup—with the singer using my preferred brand of understated clown mask in a more Arthur Fleck getup—and the band donned hockey jerseys and braided goatees in nu-propriate fashion.
For a band made up of clowns, they shockingly stuck to System’s geopolitical ragers. Sure, a giant inflatable chicken launched offstage and moshes broke out during the “my dick is bigger than yours” song. But the set hewed largely towards System’s serious anthems, which draw on their Armenian heritage of genocidal trauma.
The band were pitch perfect as they played the more extreme-metal-forward songs in System’s catalogue. By and large, and to my amazement, they stuck to the riot shield-piercing lyricism of SoaD’s political poetry and mainly reserved the promised madcap clown antics for other acts.
Interspersed with more political System songs like “Deer Dance,” there were balloon animals. There was a pie to the face. And there were serious musical chops as they spliced in other nu-metal nods such as “cut my life into pizza” as a Papa Roach parody, and a White Zombie riff (which is technically proto, but if the nu fits…).
I showed up to the clown show intending to hate. By the end, I realized the real clown was me.
