My Chemical Romance came to town just about a year ago, on tour for their The Black Parade album. They were scheduled to perform two days before we were to leave for Seattle for summer vacation. But that night the band got food poisoning so they rescheduled…for the next night. Had they played the next night it would have been their concert followed by a five hour flight to Seattle. At that point, I was actually glad they were sick but still bummed we couldn’t go see them. Now, a year later, they came back to town but now I’m wishing they almost hadn’t.

The tour they were on to promote The Black Parade had a complete gimmick as the album was a so-called “opera” in that the full album told a single story. From what I had read, heard, and seen, the concert during that time was a full production - costumes, make-up, fire, stage set…the whole bit, an actual show. But that was then, now a full year later they decided to take a different approach to their concerts. They left the costumes and fire behind and came out in standard “grunge” attire, meaning jeans and a t-shirt…and too bad. I still stand by my theory that if you’re going to go see a band there needs to be something to see. If you’re going to just hear the music then you’re wasting your money. Even though MCR was at a much smaller venue this time, I was still hoping for some production value…but that was hoping for too much apparently.

Here’s an video recapping their full production tour…the show we didn’t get to see. Note the fire, make-up, confetti, and otherwise neat stuff we didn’t get to see:

If you listen to The Black Parade you’ll hear some good music. Lots of great guitar parts, good production quality, and just generally very full and well-written music. But at this live show you heard none of that…absolutely none of it. Thanks to poor mixing and/or over jacked volume, you could hear absolutely none of the great parts in any song. Or maybe it was the constant screams of overweight teenagers behind me, but either way, you couldn’t enjoy the show. I know concerts are loud but usually they’re at least comprehensible.

It also didn’t help that MCR flew through each song - all 15 of them - within 90 minutes. The quality of each song was very lacking and you could sense that the band was just not into playing the concert whatsoever. There was no lead singer banter or even crowd ass kissing. Just song, song, song, song, song…goodnight! The wife also reports that they removed verses from songs making them shorter. It was just a shame and I was completely bummed. Unfortunately, after this performance I’m ready to write off MCR as a studio band that only sounds good when recorded and not live.

Now aside from the bands, the crowd was another story all together. I was warned before the show that the crowd was going to be a bunch of large teenage girls…and boy was it. The average age of the crowd couldn’t have been more than 15 and the average weight couldn’t have been no less than 250. And I don’t say that to be mean, it’s just the truth. And you know how saying a “mob of teenagers is scary” is a bit cliche these days? Well, believe me now when I say a mob of teenagers is scary. It was an outdoor show and we had spots up front on the floor, amongst all the teens. Behind us in the lawn seats were all the parents, some standing with binoculars watching their kids crowd surf….ok, I’m lying about the binocs but I did see some very concerned and confused parents. I won’t blame teenagers for being stupid, that’s what being a teenager is for and it’s more my fault to be standing in the middle of them than anything.

This experience was not ruined by the teens, their muffin tops, their crowd surfing, or their plaid pants and eye liner. No, this concert was ruined by My Chemical Romance by turning in a lack luster and half-hearted performance. They’re a band that needs an arena and needs a production gimmick, whether it be suits and ties or a marching band. When you follow a gimmick for five years and then just give it up for small venue because “you’re tired”, you can’t expect people to leave happy. When you put your band before the fans and the music, you’re just asking for people to give up on you.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 10:24 pm and is filed under All, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.