My Chemical Romance concert review

By Adrian Yap

Rating: 8/10

There are some bands that spend their entire careers playing at the safe end of the playground. No sudden moves, no unexpected bouts of dangling dangerously from the highest monkey bar. Then there are some bands that provoke or even demand severe responses from not just the people who listen to them, but even from those who have not.

It’s perhaps not completely pornographic to suggest that Jersey emo rock band My Chemical Romance is one such band. Decked in black garb, permanent scowls and wads of mascara, it’s easy to dismiss them as just another disposable shock rock circus. Yet on the flipside, their passionate sleeve-bleeding rock opera approach on 2006’s The Black Parade won them many a rabid fan base globally.

So their concert on 9th December at Stadium Merdeka, as part of their juggernaut world tour, was a vivid corroboration of the band’s transcendence from its dingy emo past to superstardom. The 10,000-strong crowd consisting of a diverse demographic ranging from skinny jean-wearing hipsters to functional family units. With a light drizzle trickling throughout the show, local bands One Buck Short and Pop Shuvit made light of their task of warming up a suitably irritable and damped crowd, largely decked in cheap disposable raincoats.

Much of MCR’s appeal lies squarely in the more anthemic end of its spectrum, a fact the band was obviously very aware of as they chose to strike hard off the bat, starting with a trio of exhilarating adrenaline knockers with the furious ‘This is How I Disappear’ and ending with the popular ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’ from their sophomore Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge.

Singer Gerard Way, the fulcrum of the band’s sonic and physical identity, was ever the enigmatic ringmaster. Whether it’s conducting his five bandmates, which included keyboardist James Dewees (ex-The Get Up Kids) and replacement drummer Tucker Rule (Thursday), into large cascading endings, or provoking responses from the crowd with suitable hand gestures, the man was a ball of fury and confidence. Not a great singer by a stupendously long shot, Way leveraged much of his essentiality on an insatiable passion for performance and crowd-rallying banter.

The band obviously understands the understated value of decent irony, by constructing a concept about death and beyond and then filling up the dots with these jumbo-sized rock rallies. Take for instance ‘I Don’t Love You’, a twinkling mid-tempo pop chugger about a heartbreak that sits around the midway mark of The Black Parade; intended, ironically, to provide emotional relieve from the morbid cacophony. It provided the most feelgood sight of the show, with a group of jolly hipster kids galloping along the railings and splashing water at the packed crowd behind in a gesture of festive solidarity.

With the big budget-produced Black Parade concept show retired, there was worry that the leg around this region was going to be just an afterthought. Yet even without the para-military skeletal suits and hospital beds, MCR managed to insert the odd quirk to distinguish the live experience. There was the string-washed interlude that led into ‘I Don’t Love You’ and guitarist Ray Toro’s blues-based solo spot that played intro to ‘Teenagers’. And some of the more theatrical aspects of their performance crept in too, such as frontman Gerard Way’s descent into emotional muddle at the end of ‘Sleep’ and his subsequent resurrection in the piano ballad ‘Cancer’ which closed the set on a somber note.

The show wasn’t without its faults of course. The sound was suitably patchy for the most part, not helped by Toro and Frank Lero’s abandonment of technical clarity for visual pomposity. But with its reputation for sweat and blood-spewing shows, MCR was always going to be an obtuse listen. The volume was surprisingly not very overwhelming, which should have been a huge irritation to the people who bought the cheaper seated tickets at the back. But for most, it would’ve been a 70 minutes to savour. In many ways, the short show length was appropriate given that MCR aren’t exactly the band with enough traction to dish out 100 minutes of magic. Perhaps in 20 years, they would be able to—that is, if they don’t turn novel by then. For now, they are the heroes on every teenager’s bedroom wall with a bunch of songs that have set the world on fire. If you’ve not hopped on for a ride on the Black Parade, you need to do that soon. Put that as part of your new year’s resolution or something. Then again, can that idea, because you have to do this.

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE

Date
9 December 2007

Venue
Stadium Merdeka

Set List

1. This is How I Disappear
2. Dead!
3. I’m Not Okay (I Promise)
4. Give Em’ Hell, Kid
5. The Sharpest Lives
6. Mama
7. Cemetery Drive
8. Welcome to the Black Parade
9. I Don’t Love You
10. House of Wolves
11. You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison
12. Helena
13. Teenagers
14. Sleep
15. Cancer

Encore

1. Desert Song
2. Famous Last Words