System Of A Down have dusted off their cover of Black Sabbath’s Snowblind.
The nu metal four-piece played their version of the track, originally from 1972’s Vol. 4, at their first co-headline show with fellow nu metal stars Korn at MetLife Stadium on Tuesday (August 27). The bands will play there again this evening (August 28).
Snowblind was the 20th song of System’s 26-song setlist, which also included the first performance of 2005 Hypnotize song Tentative in 10 years. The band played the cover in tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, who died last month at the age of 76 following a heart attack. System played four editions of the frontman’s namesake travelling festival, Ozzfest, between 1998 and 2006.
Guitarist/vocalist Daron Malakian said onstage at MetLife: “We did a few Ozzfests. Some of you are old enough that you were there. Some of you weren’t even born yet. I want to thank Ozzy Osbourne. We want to thank Ozzy Osbourne.”
Watch footage of the performance below.
System’s MetLife are part of a North American tour of co-headline shows. After the two stops with Korn, they’ll play a pair of dates with Avenged Sevenfold at Soldier Field in Chicago on August 31 and September 1, then another two concerts alongside Deftones at Rogers Stadium in Toronto on September 3 and 5.
System returned to more extensive touring after years of standalone shows with a South American run earlier in 2025. Talking to Eddie Trunk earlier this month, frontman Serj Tankian explained that creative dissatisfaction and the physical effects of a 2021 back surgery left him unable to commit to large-scale tours.
“For years, personally, I didn’t wanna tour at all,” he said. “I had back surgery. I had a lot of issues, so I was not, health-wise, in a place where I could travel a lot.
“And the idea of the groundhog, the idea of repetition also artistically got to me in terms of continuous long touring. And so it wasn’t really by design. It was kind of by force. That was the only way we could do stuff, is just do one show here, one show there.”
Explaining how the band got back into the mindset of doing tours again, Tankian said he’s “a lot healthier” and “physically stronger” now, following a “couple of years” of physical training. He also revealed that System’s members are “really enjoying each other and each other’s company, having a great time”.
Despite the seemingly healthier relationships within the System camp, the band still haven’t made any progress on a new album. Their last full-length releases were 2005 two-parter Mezmerize and Hypnotize.
