Comedian John Oliver Features Disturbed Cover On Last Week Tonight

Kevin D. Soney, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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On HBO’s Last Week Tonight, comedian John Oliver featured a clip of a band covering the Disturbed hit single “Down With The Sickness,” and let’s say it isn’t the heaviest cover of the nu metal classic.

As reported by Loudwire, the clip involves Oliver discussing the recent protests taking place in Canada over vaccine mandates; while talking about those involved in the protest, he brings up a Tamara Lich, who is linked to far-right groups in Canada. Oliver makes a point to share that she is the singer of a band called Blind Monday and features their cover of Disturbed’s “Down With The Sickness.” If you’re interested in checking out the brief portion involving the cover, you can jump to the timestamp “2:20” in the video below:

Later on the clip, after having covered music used in attempt to clear out trucker sit ins, Oliver makes a call back to Blind Monday’s cover of the Disturbed song. This portion of the clip starts with him saying, “Oh come on, New Zealand, playing James Blunt and Barry Manilow clearly is not going to cut it here. You’re not going to move on people this angry with the actions of a bad wedding DJ. Besides, as we all now know, if you really want to get a crowd to disperse, don’t go with Disney or James Blunt.” He concludes his point by saying, “Take it from me, there is only one song guaranteed to clear a room and it is this,” with Oliver playing the Disturbed cover again.

Given that the song is such a banger, “Down With The Sickness” has made several appearances in mainstream media, such as South Park, Queen of the Damned, and Zack Snyder’s Dawn Of The Dead remake (the song appearing as a cover in the latter).

“Down With The Sickness” is the band’s first song to be certified platinum. The Sickness has gone on to be certified five times platinum.

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Words by: Michael Pementel