My Chemical Romance led by Gerard Way returned to Auckland on 11 March. Photo: Supplied / Live Nation / Tom Grut
By Evie Orpe, Tahi digital journalist
My Chemical Romance finally returned to Auckland last night with a show at Western Springs. Tahi journalist Evie Orpe was there for what she calls one of the best nights of her life.
First things first, I'm a huge My Chemical Romance fan. Maybe their biggest fan on earth. To say I was buzzing for this show is a gross understatement, I'm fizzing.
The show has been rescheduled every year since its original March 2020 date, and my tickets felt just as worthless as an NFT until a few weeks ago.
With an all-local opening line up, including Lips, Miss June and Goodnight Nurse, the Saturday concert at Tāmaki Makurau's Western Springs felt like an emo reunion special.
The millennials were there, the fishnets were on and the marching band outfits were pulled deep from dusty closets. Unfortunately for those who put the effort in, the sun was out and bullying us all, but we soldiered on.
Only My Chemical Romance could get a pack of emos to stand in giant field in the hot sun for hours.
Lead singer Gerard Way, bassist Mikey Way, Frank Iero and guitarist Ray Toro enter the stage to roaring screams and applause. A hum briefly falls over the audience and we wait.
Gerard is wearing a skirt suit. He looks amazing, and the band slowly kicks into their latest track 'The Foundations of Decay'. Gerard's classic wailing vocals on full display, he eggs us to cheer along. Where I was standing, nobody else knew the lyrics. So I was ruining lives by screaming every lyric at the top of my lungs. I loved it, even if nobody else did.
The band rips straight into their classic banger 'I'm Not Okay (I Promise)'. Although I had been waiting for this show for years, somehow I still wasn't prepared for this moment, and I immediately burst into tears. I can imagine MCR have played this song thousands of times, but somehow it still felt new.
The set list was organized perfectly, almost chronologically. We hear 'Boy Division' followed directly by Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge fan favourite 'Give 'Em Hell Kid' and The Black Parade fan fave 'How I Disappear'. This was when the crowd really started moving, my primal screams finally being matched by others in the audience.
After making the (wrong) assumption we wouldn't be lucky enough to hear any tracks from their first album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love I hear a familiar riff start going - it's 'Our Lady of Sorrows'. My legs turn to jelly and I just about pass out onto my friends behind me.
The inclusion of a song from their first, least commercially successful album made the show special for the die-hard fans out there. Most of us have never heard that track live before. They easily could have just played the hits, but it was nice they didn't.
Gerard Way, lead singer of My Chemical Romance at Auckland's Western Springs. Photo: Supplied / Live Nation / Tom Grut
'Teenagers' starts and the crowd are finally at full energy. The perfect emo sing-along, those of us who were teenagers when this song came out were feeling their age for sure, but a crowd like this finally appearing is what waiting in the unrelenting sun is all about.
'Thank You For The Venom' came up next, and put MCR's talent and professionalism on full display. This is a band who know what they're doing, this is a band who love their music, and are excited to share it with us.
I'm going to be really honest here, before last night, I don't know if I ever got the band's 2010 album Danger Days. I thought it was a good album, sure, but for me, it just didn't compare to the band's earlier work. This was because I never had the chance to hear these songs live. 'DESTROYA' and 'Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)' from the album Danger Days were two of the best songs of the night.
They followed up with more Danger Days songs, 'Vampire Money' and 'Planetary (GO!)', which is where the audience had the honour of experiencing Ray Toro's insane skill on the guitar. He does an extended solo, and I realize there isn't actually anything cooler in the entire world than a lit guitar solo. My 12-year-old self could have told me that.
Way started getting the crowd to participate in some vocal melodies for a song we all know and can scream loudly: 'Helena'. A song everyone knows, so it's gonna go off. It did. I lose control of my body and start thrashing around like a child trying to avoid an injection.
'Mama' and 'Famous Last Words' were surely the most hype songs of the set. The audience were Gerard Way's puppets at this point, the whole crowd singing along to lyrics "I am not afraid to keep on living, I am not afraid to walk this world alone" which was really special. I burst into tears, again.
They hadn't played 'Welcome to the Black Parade' yet, so when they left the stage nobody chanted for an encore because why would we? We know they're coming back to deliver the emo anthem of our time. So everyone just waited and chatted and cried for a couple of minutes. Obviously, the song went off, the entire crowd screaming every word.
It was gorgeous, moving, beautiful and religious. All you need is that first piano note and you can control a crowd.
At this point I become struck with intense emotion: This is a band that have been with me through everything, the musical backdrop to my entire life. The band that made me feel, ironically, OK, are with me playing my favourite songs, I'm standing next to friends old and new. But I'm a grown-up now. It felt like a very intense coming of age moment for me, and judging by the amount of tears around us I certainly wasn't alone.
There was a huge emotional release in the air. As if all of us were finally letting out the built-up frustration and sadness from the Covid-19 pandemic, which came in between us and this show for so long. I'm not surprised though, the world was different when most of us bought these tickets.
Things will never be the same again, but we still have My Chemical Romance.
One of the best nights of my entire life.
