My Chemical Romance

support Drive By + Every Time I Die
author MS date 14/11/05 venue Vega, Copenhagen, DEN

My Chemical Romance have a lot to live up to, being one of the most, if not the most, debated bands out there this year. They have been on the cover of all the big magazines numerous times. All this for their second studio album "Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge", and they deserve it no doubt. But unfortunately it is obvious that the mainstream has had severe effects on the band. More on this later. RF.net arrived at Vega about 20:50. The doors had opened at 20:00, so Vega was already tightly packed with MCR fans, which for the mostpart consisted of teenage girls. Some even younger than that. I hate when the sets start prior to announced, which the first supportband Drive By had apparently done. When I've paid for a concert that according to my ticket starts at 21:00, I want to be able to see all the bands when I arrive at that time. Everything else is bullshit, pardon my language. We decided to hang out in the bar and have a beer while Drive By played their pop rock set. They were nothing special, but not bad either, and they seemed to fit the audience perfectly with their mainstream tunes, which was more than what could be said about Every Time I Die's much more hardcore styled music.

Every Time I Die

Just before Every Time I Die went on, a very mentionable and very awesome soundcheck was done by one of the guitarists from behind the stage. Already at that point it seemed obvious that their set were not going to fit the crowd. Nonetheless it did, because when they went on, the pit was moving from song one. This was probably the most energetic crowd I have ever seen at a support gig. I was all the way in the front, and soon had to back down because of the intense ammount of pressure from the crowd. ETID delivered an awesome show, with their very technical riffs and screaming vocals. Not a boring moment here, and for one of the songs they pulled out Gerard from MCR to assist with the vocals.

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My Chemical Romance

About 22:30 MCR entered the stage with endless cheer from the crowd. They opened with the quiet "Interlude" from the CD, followed by the very fastpaced "Thank You For The Venom". Good choice. The crowd was of course going nuts, singing along to all the words of all the songs, and even though I had expected a little less activity in the pit than for Every Time I Die, this was not the fact. In fact it was glowing red through most of the show. It surprised me a bit that the song they proceeded with after "Thank You For The Venom", was the quieter song "Cemetery Drive", which would be better suited for one of the last songs if you ask me. They don't have many slow songs, so wasting one of them in the beginning of the show, when the crowd is expecting to blow off the steam they have been storing up since they bought their ticket, does not seem that wise. But then again, it was a mainstream audience, so in that way it fit in okay. The other slow song on the album; "The Ghost Of You" was played about midway through the set, and here Gerard urged everyone to get out their lighters and mobile phones. Again, I don't get why they put this in this early, and it did quite ruin the encore in my opinion.

The setlist consisted of every single song from "Three Cheers...", as well as two songs from their debut "I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love", namely "Our Lady Of Sorrows" and "Demolition Lovers". Besides that, they played a song which Gerard presented as a new song. This is where the alarm went off in my head, as it instantly reminded me of the old Wham! classic "Last Christmas". Not only were the chords of the song apparently the exact same, but even the melody bore great resemblance to the 80's pop song. Other than that, the song was just incredibly mainstream, and sounded like just another radio hit. Not impressive. What they did do very good though, was covering the Blur classic "Song 2". For this they brought out the vocalists from Drive By and Everytime I Die, as well as some other guy of whom I didn't really catch the identity. The classic drumline was going in the background as Gerard presented them one by one, and when the first "woohoo" hit, the whole floor was jumping around like crazed baboons. So thumbs up on that one.

The highnotes of the show was clearly towards the end of the show when they played the instant classic "You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison". Here, Gerard used the light and happy intro of the song to present the bandmembers. When he started on the verse, everyone was singing along, and as the chorus hit, there was not a person standing still on the floor. This is what I call quality entertainment. Also, the performance of the closing track on the album; "I Never Told You What I Do For A Living" is worth mentioning. This is probably my favourite by them, as it has this little hook in the middle of the song that just screams for you to lose yourself and crash your already bruised body into the nearest bystander, and then the next one, and so on. Amazing stuff.

For the encore, MCR chose to only play their smash radio hit "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)". The least interesting song on the album if you ask me, so that kind of ruined the whole encore experience for me. Unfortunate. I would probably have chosen "Cemetery Drive" or "The Ghost of You", followed by a either "Helena", "You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison" or another of their most energetic songs. But alas, once again we see that the mainstream goes to the brain and blinds it from the right thing to do. As a last notice, I must say that I was a bit dissapointed in Gerards voice, as it didn't seem as unique and energetic as on the album, but this of course is forgivable.

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