By snoadmin
Sometimes being a member of MySpace.com has its advantages. New Jersey rockers My Chemical Romance played a free show last Thursday for MySpace’s “The List” at the Avalon Theatre in Los Angeles. The few people who were selected for the event got an extremely intimate show from the band as it debuted new material from its upcoming release “The Black Parade.”
A crowd of fewer than 200 people were spread out around the theatre as My Chemical Romance hit the stage dressed as its “alter-ego” band, The Black Parade.
Sporting bleached-blonde hair and a parade conductor’s outfit, lead singer Gerard Way took the stage and sang a slow intro silhouetted behind a curtain. The curtain fell to reveal Frank Iero (guitar/vocals), Mikey Way (bass), Ray Toro (lead guitar/vocals) and Bob Bryar (drums) dressed similarly and ready to rock.
They immediately went into a new song “Dead.” The song was a little slower than most of the stuff on their super successful 2004 major label debut “Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge,” but the crowd seemed to enjoy it.
Just in case the first song hadn’t caught anybody’s attention, they went right into the mega single “I’m Not OK (I Promise)” to the squealing delight of most of the crowd. Head-banging “Thank You For the Venom” was next and the people lurking in the back of the room started to drift toward the pit.
The touring experience of the band shows on the stage. For most of 2004 and 2005, the band was on the road, touring with Story of the Year, Nintendo Fusion Tour, Warped Tour, Avenged Sevenfold, Green Day, Taste of Chaos and a headlining tour. The guys looked extremely comfortable on stage and played their instruments with extreme precision.
Even during their new single “The Black Parade,” the band looks like it has played the song a million times. The ominous piano led into Way’s vocals telling of pseudo childhood memories of his father asking him to lead a parade of “the broken, beaten and the damned.”
The song turns into a full-fledged anthem of ups and downs that the band promises summarizes the new album best.
They hit the audience with a series of old favorites with “The Ghost of You,” “Give ‘Em Hell Kid” and “Cemetery Drive” before launching into another new one called “House of Wolves.”
They finished the set with “You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us In Prison” before scurrying offstage.
The crowd kept screaming and clapping until Way came back to the stage to sing the new slow ballad, “Cancer.” The song is powerful and speaks of missing a love. The band rejoined him on stage for the huge MTV single “Helena.” The band then thanked everybody for coming and left the stage.
Still, fans did not leave. The theatre turned all the lights on and turned on music, but the audience kept screaming and chanting “one more song.”
My Chemical Romance did not disappoint. They came out for their first-ever second encore and played the new song “Famous Last Words” for the first time in front of an audience. The song was probably the best out of all the new ones played that night. It has strong guitars and crashing drums and captured the energy that has made the band famous.
The only big disappointment was that the group didn’t play any songs from their first album, 2002’s “I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love.”
Being a long-time fan of the band, the absence left me somewhat disappointed.
“The Black Parade” comes out on Oct. 24, and appears to be just as ambitious, if not more than their last two albums. MySpace.com will have video footage of the event uploaded soon at www.myspace.com/thelist.com.
