Look alive, sunshine. My Chemical Romance are in town, transported back through the annals of time from the desolated wasteland of the Divided States of America circa 2019, and they're about to paint the streets red, yellow, blue, orange and just about every other colour that still exists within the futuristic Californian rainbow. So BE RESPONSIBLE, boys and girls, TAKE YOUR MEDICINE; KILLJOYS, do your duty and MAKE SOME NOISE and everyone else, ready yourself for the comic book punk rock extravaganza of a lifetime. MCR are here to BUILD A BETTER YOU and they're about to do it now and do it oh-so-very loud.
Taking to the stage bathed in shocking Technicolor, looking like characters from Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World or some such, this is My Chemical Romance at their most bleedin' obvious, stripped of the funeral obliquity of the Black Parade era and free, once more, to engage in pure, dumb rock 'n' roll fun. Tonight's notably lengthy set is heavy on the 'Danger Days', and while the 6,000 strong Metro Radio Arena may save the loudest singalongs and most rapturous applause for the earlier material, it is the steampunk synth 'n' scuzz of such gems as the filthy 'Vampire Money' and the ass-shakingly sexy 'Planetary (GO!)' that shine the brightest and leave the most indelible impression.
For all 'The Black Parade' was a fantastically brave reinvention, and a superlative record, you get the feeling that this is what MCR were born to do; that these larger-than-life, unashamedly over-the-top fantasy figures that stalk the stage, battering their instruments and throwing the kind of camp poses that put Paul Smith to shame (we're looking at you, Gerard Way), are at their most comfortable in this environment, playing science-fiction tinged punk rock and blistering their way through their back catalogue like their very lives depend upon it. Just check the unwieldy sense of urgency that ploughs its way through a breakneck 'Na Na Na', surely one of the finest rock 'n' roll pop songs of the last ten years. The energy is exhilarating, the speed spine tingling and the brevity breathtaking.
And while 'Danger Days' may see MCR at their most cohesive, when they do plumb the depths of their earlier material, the chosen tracks complement their contemporary counterparts exceptionally well. Once-in-a-blue-moon 'Our Lady of Sorrows' benefits from six years of increased technical skill, sounding far more bombastic than it was ever meant to be; 'Give 'Em Hell, Kid' and 'Hang 'Em High' thunder along faster than a speeding bullet; 'Mama' brings the carnival to town, coming on like a slice of hyperbolic pantomime and prompting a mass clicking-of-the-fingers; and of course, 'Welcome to the Black Parade', 'Famous Last Words', 'I'm Not Okay' and 'Helena' rock like absolute bastards, aided and abetted by Ray Toro and Frank Iero's deliciously savage guitar assaults.
Inevitably, the crash queens and motor babies lose their minds to all of these, screaming each word 'til their lungs give out and, on a particularly rowdy 'Teenagers', threatening to obliterate the Arena's overly expensive flooring (it doubles as an ice rink, you know). Interestingly, however, for all these visceral rock 'n' roll thrills are invigorating, it is the quieter moments that provide the biggest highlights. The piano-led reinterpretation of 'The Ghost of You' drips with bitterest melancholy, while 'Cancer', featuring merely James Dewees on keyboard and a barely visible Gerard (bathed in smoke and cutting an eerily imposing figure in silhouette), sends shivers down the spine, so delicate and cracked is the boy Way's voice. It's a soberingly serious moment amongst the dumb fun of the rest of the evening and it's all the more powerful for it.
As boys, girls, mums, dads, freaks and creeps alike stumble out of the Metro Radio Arena tonight, their T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like ART IS THE WEAPON, their hearts and minds battered and bruised from the Technicolor punk rock show they've just witnessed, there's a sense of victory in the air. Victory for My Chemical Romance, who, by their own admission, were teetering on the brink of collapse after 'The Black Parade'; victory for the killjoys, whose devotion continues to prove well justified, and victory for the genre as MCR prove, categorically, that punk rock can translate to the cavernous corporate opulence of the arena environment without losing any of its heart. Louder than God's revolver and twice as shiny, MCR pump out the slaughtomatic sounds to keep you alive and look fucking fantastic doing it. The future IS bulletproof; the aftermath IS secondary and tonight, my friends, My Chemical Romance ARE fucking outstanding.
No comments:
Post a Comment