Manchester: Contaminated!

As the lights went down, shortly after the second of two support acts (Welsh rock band The Blackout) had finished their short selection of songs, a strange silence fell across the crowd of about 10,000 people in the MEN arena. You could almost feel the anticipation in the air, as everyone waited patiently for something to happen. Suddenly, the silence was sliced into by a loud male voice shouting words which to any ‘normal’ person would seem like utter nonsense, “I’ll be your surgeon, your proctor, your helicopter...the future is bulletproof; the aftermath is secondary,” but to the thousands of ‘Killjoys’ in that room, they were words they had heard many times before, and understood as the words of a fictional character fighting to survive in the US state of California in the year 2019. As the voice of ‘Dr. Death Defying’ called out its last words, “Killjoys, make some noise!” the room was filled with blinding light, as the faces of American alternative rock band My Chemical Romance were finally revealed.

The crowd then jumped to life, as if they had been suddenly snapped out of a meditative trance, and joined in, singing along to the first single from the band’s newest album Danger Days - the True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, an upbeat, energetic punk-rock song titled, ‘Na Na Na’. The band then went on to play a song from their second album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, about the struggles related to teenage pregnancy, Give ‘Em Hell, Kid.

The third of their setlist of 20 songs (including the encore, which was the live debut of Bulletproof Heart) was Planetary (GO!), another upbeat song, with sirens and various electronic sounds throughout and what has been described as ‘semi-rap’ in the second verse, making it into a dance song, almost. Yet, it still had a feel of ‘MCR-ness’ to it, with lyrics such as, 'truth is now acceptable; fame is now injectable’.

By this point, it had become quite clear that the band’s days of being called a ‘suicide cult’ band by ignorant journalists are over. Although their lyrics have always carried a message of hope, (“I am not afraid to keep on living, I am not afraid to walk this world alone,”) whereas in the past some of these lyrics may have been misinterpreted, now the message is quite clear, as proven by the ninth song on Danger Days... which contains the words, “get off the ledge and drop the knife...this ain’t a room full of suicides.”

When the sounds of Planetary (GO!) finally faded out, Hang ‘Em High, another very energetic song (despite having very dark lyrics which suggest two lovers, one of which has died, murdering a number of people so they can be together again, the storyline of concept album Three Cheers...) began to play. After that, there came another one of the band’s newer songs, SING, a slightly slower song, which sounded more pop than punk. This could partly be to do with the fact it had recently been covered by the Glee cast, much to the dismay of many loyal My Chemical Romance fans who feel the choir of pop singers ‘killed’ the song.

The next song, however, was very different. Vampire Money, a fast-paced punk song about how the band’s frontman, Gerard Way, was offered a lot of money for some of his songs to be able to be used for the soundtrack of Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final film based on the extremely popular series of novels, The Twilight Saga. He turned down the offer, not wanting the band to become a marketing tool. This is made clear through the sarcasm contained in the lyrics of the song, such as “when you wanna be a movie star, play the game and take your band real far...gimme gimme some of that vampire money”

Then came the song that many older fans of the band had been waiting for, Our Lady of Sorrows, an old classic from MCR’s debut album which was released way back in 2002, ‘I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love’, mostly made up from insanely fast guitar riffs and screamed profanities, making it the perfect song for the portion of the crowd with standing tickets to ‘mosh’ to.

The next song played was Mama, a song from the album, The Black Parade, probably their most popular album yet, which can be seen as being bad as well as good, as it attracted a lot of unwanted attention from the media. This was shortly followed by two slow love songs off Danger Days..., The Only Hope for Me Is You and Summertime.

By now, the crowd had started to become tired, partly due to the songs, and partly because of the fact the arena was crowded, and had become quite hot. However, the band weren’t ready to let their fans fall asleep just yet, as the sounds of a quick guitar riff rang out, and they leaped into the next song, I’m Not Okay (I Promise), a song which is quite upbeat, despite Way having written it about how he struggled with depression and alcoholism during his teenage years and early adulthood. My Chem, as they are sometimes called, then began to play Famous Last Words; a song which probably carries a greater message of hope than any other song ever written by them.

Despite it being quite late at night by this time, the crowd stayed wide awake, and just as excited as they had been at the beginning, throughout the next few songs, The Ghost of You, DESTROYA, Welcome to the Black Parade and Teenagers. By now there were only a few songs left to go, and you could see the sweat glistening on each band member’s forehead on the large television screens at either side of the stage. However, they kept on going, Way still singing with as much passion as always, speaking to the crowd in between songs, (“You’re all beautiful motherf***ers!”) and appearing to have as much energy as an eight year old boy, despite his 34th Birthday being less than two months away.

The next song, which Way dedicated to all the “cool parents” who had been dragged along by their teenage sons and daughters, was The Kids From Yesterday, one of the final songs on their newest album as well as one of the final songs they would play that night. It is also a very emotional (although quite cheerful) song, with lyrics such as "well now this could be the last of all the rides we take, so hold on tight and don’t look back...when we were young we used to say that you only hear the music when your heart begins to break"

My Chemical Romance then played another song off Three Cheers..., Helena, before playing their 19th, (and final) song, Cancer, (from The Black Parade) a very slow, sad song, and throughout it many people could be seen with tears in their eyes.

However, although the official setlist was over, the audience, (despite being exhausted by now) demanded an encore. The band could be seen having a short discussion, before they slowly drifted into their final song, the live debut of Bulletproof Heart, a song which is probably one of the most loved from Danger Days...

When the last note was sung, when the last chord was strummed, when the last beat was played, the whole crowd was left buzzing with excitement from the atmosphere of the whole show. Even as people were getting ready to leave the arena, and soon return to their normal way of life, one thing is for sure; this has been a night which none of them will ever forget. A night which can only be described in the words of Mr. Way himself: “F***in’ magical.”