Rocker (feedbot)
Platinum Member
It’s Gerard Way’s World, and we just happen to live in it. Why else would ninety thousand of us be attempting to decipher cryptic messages flashed across the screens of Wembley Stadium in order to try and extract secret messages from our emo prophets mere hours before My Chemical Romance start their show? They’ve always been a puzzle box and tonight proves that the line between hubris and genius, between the greatest show of the year and the musical equivalent of ‘The Room’, is razor thin. We get all four of these qualities in vast quantities and, even more astoundingly, honesty so sharp it grazes. For a brief couple of hours, we are utterly under their control.
Just like the usual events at Wembley Stadium, tonight is a game of two halves. We’ll politely sidestep the question of whether it’s appropriate to role-play as a Soviet era dictatorship – complete with mock executions, a secret police force and an ever-present Big Brother figure watching from a throne – when the victims of these real life political systems number in the tens of millions, and instead we’ll focus on the sheer drama. Way rewrites our teenage agonies as ecstasies from the moment ‘The End’ opens the show, his scarecrow charisma soaring as he sings for his life at the biggest misery party of the year. One note of ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’ breaks us all. He takes to a podium and delivers it as preaching, our raised fists casting us as actors in his vision. “Once more into the breach,” he snarls. By the time we’ve reached ‘House Of Wolves’, the strength of the music buries his overacting, and its stunning; a song of colossal heartbreak.
Between the Shakespearean allusions, re-casting ‘Teenagers’ as seventies light entertainment that sparks rapturous screamed karaoke, and a cast member on fire running across the stage, we’re fully bought in. ‘Disenchanted’, the beginning of the end, is just so much grit and punch, an infernal resistance, and the sight of the band playing on in the middle of a fully burning set as rockets flare overhead is one that’s seared into our memories. The entire first act is a testament to magnificent ambition and the lasting power of our favourite album two decades on.
Then, the real surprises arrive, perhaps even more shocking than seeing the frontman stabbed by a clown. One transfer to the small second stage later and we see MCR as they really are; a very human rock band, humbled by their success, and ready to give us the emo hit we need. Despite the fact there’s an entire town’s worth of people here, the second stage feels like an intimate little island in the middle of the chaos and a reward for sticking with the band for this long. Our thanks comes in the form of the first outing for ‘Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For The Two of Us’ in a decade and a half, and their revelatory cover of Morrissey’s ‘Jack The Ripper’, played live for the first time since 2003. “It’s a little different,” Way remarks, and suddenly we’re witnessing the twisted post punk beauty that could always have been part of their sound. “Oh, we haven’t played this yet on tour! You love rave shit, don’t you?!” Way gently surprises himself before dropping ‘Planetary (GO!)’, and the tiny circular stage becomes the eye of a moshing storm. He might be right about ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’ as well; the “greatest summer jam of all time” conjures a halo of phone screens around them as we slam as one, creating the MCR live moment we all wanted.
In the middle of ‘Helena’, with waterfalls of guitar raining around him and fireworks lighting the midnight sky above, the vocalist pauses between our shouted lines. “Fuck…” he whispers, barely audible above thousands of screams, the reality of what this show is finally hitting him. We all experienced that frozen realisation over the course of their set at one point or another. It might have been the theatrical microcosm of ‘Mama’, or waiting for zero to hit on the missile countdown above ‘Disenchanted’, or revelling in the vibrancy of ‘I Don’t Love You’, or a million other little moments which reached out to all of is.
It was a day trip to the world of My Chemical Romance at their finest and a payoff for anyone who clutched ‘The Black Parade’ to their hearts when they needed it the most, but most importantly; tonight could easily be a contender for the title of Show Of The Summer.
KATE ALLVEY
Photo: Matty Vogel
Just like the usual events at Wembley Stadium, tonight is a game of two halves. We’ll politely sidestep the question of whether it’s appropriate to role-play as a Soviet era dictatorship – complete with mock executions, a secret police force and an ever-present Big Brother figure watching from a throne – when the victims of these real life political systems number in the tens of millions, and instead we’ll focus on the sheer drama. Way rewrites our teenage agonies as ecstasies from the moment ‘The End’ opens the show, his scarecrow charisma soaring as he sings for his life at the biggest misery party of the year. One note of ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’ breaks us all. He takes to a podium and delivers it as preaching, our raised fists casting us as actors in his vision. “Once more into the breach,” he snarls. By the time we’ve reached ‘House Of Wolves’, the strength of the music buries his overacting, and its stunning; a song of colossal heartbreak.
Between the Shakespearean allusions, re-casting ‘Teenagers’ as seventies light entertainment that sparks rapturous screamed karaoke, and a cast member on fire running across the stage, we’re fully bought in. ‘Disenchanted’, the beginning of the end, is just so much grit and punch, an infernal resistance, and the sight of the band playing on in the middle of a fully burning set as rockets flare overhead is one that’s seared into our memories. The entire first act is a testament to magnificent ambition and the lasting power of our favourite album two decades on.
Then, the real surprises arrive, perhaps even more shocking than seeing the frontman stabbed by a clown. One transfer to the small second stage later and we see MCR as they really are; a very human rock band, humbled by their success, and ready to give us the emo hit we need. Despite the fact there’s an entire town’s worth of people here, the second stage feels like an intimate little island in the middle of the chaos and a reward for sticking with the band for this long. Our thanks comes in the form of the first outing for ‘Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For The Two of Us’ in a decade and a half, and their revelatory cover of Morrissey’s ‘Jack The Ripper’, played live for the first time since 2003. “It’s a little different,” Way remarks, and suddenly we’re witnessing the twisted post punk beauty that could always have been part of their sound. “Oh, we haven’t played this yet on tour! You love rave shit, don’t you?!” Way gently surprises himself before dropping ‘Planetary (GO!)’, and the tiny circular stage becomes the eye of a moshing storm. He might be right about ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’ as well; the “greatest summer jam of all time” conjures a halo of phone screens around them as we slam as one, creating the MCR live moment we all wanted.
In the middle of ‘Helena’, with waterfalls of guitar raining around him and fireworks lighting the midnight sky above, the vocalist pauses between our shouted lines. “Fuck…” he whispers, barely audible above thousands of screams, the reality of what this show is finally hitting him. We all experienced that frozen realisation over the course of their set at one point or another. It might have been the theatrical microcosm of ‘Mama’, or waiting for zero to hit on the missile countdown above ‘Disenchanted’, or revelling in the vibrancy of ‘I Don’t Love You’, or a million other little moments which reached out to all of is.
It was a day trip to the world of My Chemical Romance at their finest and a payoff for anyone who clutched ‘The Black Parade’ to their hearts when they needed it the most, but most importantly; tonight could easily be a contender for the title of Show Of The Summer.
KATE ALLVEY
Photo: Matty Vogel