I saved hundreds watching a tribute band over the real thing
Tired of spending hundreds on stadium gigs, Damien Gabet set off on a long, dark journey to Cheltenham to watch a System Of A Down tribute band. It might have been better than the real thing
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. 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. I immediately fell in love, the album a sonic boom to which I could tether my teenage uncertainties.
In May of that year, they came to the UK for the first time. Their opening show was in Wolverhampton, just up the road from me. 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… man, that still hurts. But I was 14 and the £12 ticket was more than I could afford.
Tribute bands can be better than the real thing
Fast forward to January 2026 and another friend called me with good news: “I’ve got us tickets to System!” he yelled. “Brilliant,” I said. “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 nothing short of 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 the view doesn’t help, either. I find it difficult to enjoy myself under these circumstances, so I did the unthinkable. I turned the ticket down.
Then, serendipitously, I saw a poster in a pub toilet for a System of a Down tribute act playing that same weekend. 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, perhaps even Ozzy himself.
Chop Suey (named after the band’s most famous song) were playing in my home town of Margate… but I’d already committed to seeing White Lies – remember them? – at London’s Roundhouse, so I couldn’t go.
Thwarted again. So I looked up their other shows: Cheltenham, the home of horse racing, in a fortnight, on a Thursday. Four hours’ drive there, four hours back – on a school night. To watch a tribute band. 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 left Margate just after lunch with enough canned caffeine to kill a horse. It was only when looking contemplatively into the urinals at Cobham Services that I realised I’d not yet bought a ticket. It was too far in now to turn back now – it was in the hands of the fates.
Half a working day later, I found myself in Cheltenham. I parked up, 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.
“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 & fucking 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 an hour of pure joy. I screamed along to every song: “I cry when angels deserve to die!”
After the show, I contacted Chop Suey’s manager and drummer, Andre Joyzi, and told him my reason for being there. He was appreciative but thought I was completely bonkers. “You did what?! That’s crazy, man!”
As for the actual band’s ticket prices, Joyzi was unequivocal: “I think it’s outrageous. When I was young, this was the music of poor people, the outcasts and the misfits. Suddenly you’ve got to pay half a month’s rent to see a band,” he said. Would he pay to see them? “I love them, but no way!”
Joyzi thinks the stigma around tribute bands seems to be disappearing – an opinion supported by the stats, which show a rise in interest in part due to inflated stadium prices. “The kids don’t care that it’s not the real thing,” he said. “They still want photos and autographs.”
What used to be 150-person shows for the band are now regularly up to 400 or more. “We played a 3,000-person festival last week and we’ve got two more planned this summer,” he said, sounding somewhat surprised.
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. There’s a pleasing feeling of reciprocity that you don’t get when your heroes levitate asymmetrically above you.
The Frog & Fiddle night 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, sure I’d made the right choice.