one day i'll leave you a phantom to lead you in the summer
So honestly, what I'm getting most out of this is a sudden and fierce love of Conventional Weapons. I was excited when it first came out, but then One Direction were making catchy pop songs, and Ke$ha had a new album, and I didn't have time for MCR's angry guitar kind of rock. I listened to each disc like once - though "Boy Division" kept coming up on shuffle - and didn't bother anymore. But over the weekend I put their entire discography on shuffle, and wow.
Reading other people's reactions, I feel kind of...bad that I'm not a sobbing mess. They were my band, my favourites, my comfort blanket, so why am I basically okay? I was okay on Saturday (though my iPod chose to follow WTTBP with "The Light Behind Your Eyes" and my vision did get a little blurry) and I was okay on Sunday listening to their discography through (though wow "The World Is Ugly" you need to stop), and I'm okay now. I mean, I know I'm not really in bandom anymore, but I still do consider myself a part of it, even though I'm not reading the fic (or writing it) because they're my boys.
And honestly? I think it's FOB. FOB and MCR were the two cornerstones of my bandom experience (Panic were the slightly lower third stone), and if having FOB back means MyChem have to go...I am okay with that. Or put it this way: I'd be a lot less okay if neither of them were around, because of what they mean to me and the things I associate with them and feeling like my childhood non-adulthood was well and truly ended and nope nope nope DNW. So yes, I am ok.
Also helping is everything that's been said by people other than fandom: Lyn-Z and Brian (Brian! I thought I read somewhere that he was bad-mouthing them all over the place a couple of years ago, so well fucking done for getting over yourself enough to comfort us dude) and Kitty and Jared Leto (and the Echelon) and Pete. And the articles, they're pretty great too.
And Dewees. And I gotta say, I don't understand why this isn't more of a thing? Like, a) FOB have just come back from a hiatus where up to the last minute they were adamant that they were never ever ever getting back together, and b) " It doesn’t mean it’ll never happen again, but it means that everyone wants a real break from it. They don’t want to say it’s a hiatus because then it still lingers over your head. If you say you’re breaking up, cool, then you can stop. You don’t have to answer emails anymore until you want to."
And, of course, Gerard. I read that with a stupid grin on my face, because you're goddamn right they were spectacular, and you're goddamn right they're the only fucking band to ever refer to themselves with stupid-amazing sci-fi robot metaphors.
I've seen other people doing this, so y'know, monkey see (also my memories are pretty awesome and I want to revel in them):
- I remember "I'm Not Okay" starting to be played on what felt like ALL THE MTV CHANNELS (but was probably only Kerrang LBR) and learning that the sight of that fake green movie-rating scrren meant I should switch channels pronto because ugh ugh stupid screamy rock band blegh
- I remember finally giving in to the inevitable (presumably after I'd downloaded "Sugar We're Goin Down") and getting "I'm Not Okay" and "Helena", then constantly having them on repeat on my crappy-but-resilient first mp3 player
- I remember queuing up "It's Not A Fashion Statement" before leaving the boarding house in the morning to revise for my GCSEs, because fuck my so-called friends I didn't need them anyway
- I remember buying LOTMS not long after it came out and bouncing out of the store with it in its bag
- I remember listening to the live CD while they were playing the first London show of the Black Parade-era in lieu of being there
- I remember all the "lol yeah sure Gerard's blond" comments on chemicalromance, and the mini!MCR comic made to commemorate the occasion. (sidenote: if you don't know about minimcr you are missing out and need to go back through there, and then to the linked comm (which WOW I DID NOT NOW SHE'D CARRIED ON HELLO NEW ART YES GOOD), immediately. It's probably best done chronologically, because the art gets better, and also because then you get the in jokes like Bob's cat)
- I remember the first few stills from the WTTBP set, all apocalyptic and one with Mother War being all creepy and shit, and then the news of the injuries and something about a car crash (?)
- I remember watching that first performance of WTTBP and my entire body humming with this sense of this yes this, and offering my firstborn child from a rip of the studio version when it was put up on MySpace (MYSPACE) five minutes later (which...I guess means I owe someone my firstborn? Whoops)
- I remember Gerard walking with a cane and Bob with the icepack on his face and then the news that he'd had to be rushed to hospital because STAPH INFECTION PRACTICALLY IN HIS BRAIN and fandom's collective worry and well-wishes
- I remember that ridic amazing press conference video thing, and the iTunes TBP walkthrough (WHICH I STILL HAVE, FUCKING SUCCEED) and Gerard's earnest little "[that's what we're trying to tell them,] we want [the fans] to live" fading into the last thirty seconds of FLW (♥ ♥ ♥)
- I remember them playing "Dead!" live at Reading and Leeds and putting it on my mp3 because crazy energy and guitarrrr and counting in yesss
- I remember that Black Parade site with the heart monitor beeping, and that I was on a Good Charlotte forum when I saw one of the offtopic threads about how the whole album was up
- I remember counting down the weeks before TBP was released in the back of several of my exercise books, a tickbox for every lesson over that meant another day closer
- I remember ordering the £70 boxset and giving no fucks that it was almost a quarter of my year's allowance
- I remember listening to TBP all the way through non-stop on the way back from a school trip to New York, because my best friend was staying with family there and no one else gave enough fucks about me to sit next to me on the bus or the plane. I remember appreciating that TBP was a rollercoaster of an album, an angry defiant song followed by a mellower sadder one, and then right back to the one-two-fuck-you, and following right along with it
- I remember using it as a comfort blanket when the rest of my life was stacking up, decisions about my future I didn't want or know how to make, and how the album blocked it all out and shut me away in a little bubble of musical reassurance that everything was gonna be okay
- I remember going to see them for the first time, my first proper, in-the-pit rockshow and the only one to date I've ever bothered to wait in line for. They played "Headfirst For Halos" and only half the crowd knew it; several girls outside the doors earlier had "I ♥ GW" on their arms and I wondered why they were so enamoured of the dumbfuck American president. They were somehow larger than life, and almost surreal because they were really there. I am only 0.1% ashamed to say that my clearest memory is of Gerard slooowly licking up his palm and my brain sputtering
- I remember the Halloween show with the facepaint; the "thirty is old for trees" interview; Mikey taking time off tour because he'd just got married and Gerard posting about it on the website
- I remember wondering vaguely whether the stagegay would start up again, then coming back from holiday to find Projekt Revolution in full swing. I remember the livestream "fight", the night half of them went shirtless, the morning after the last show where fandom woke up and went "...Gerard did WHAT NOW? WEARING A UNICORN SHIRT?"
- I remember going to see them a second time in Paris, a small venue when they were so big in the UK; they'd ditched the costumes and were just them, jeans and t-shirts and verve. Afterwards, my dad (who'd come with me because BIG CITY: DANGEROUS and also because hey there are guitars why not) informed me that FOB were better. I informed him that clearly his hearing was impaired
- I remember the tours kept coming, while everyone's hair grow longer - especially Bob's, which was Viking-like and glorious by the end - and health problems kept hitting and fandom joked they were cursed (I'd link the miniMCR comic on the subject but it won't load :( )
- I remember the last show, in Madison Square Garden, Gerard and Mikey interviewed earlier in the day and tired but so fucking thrilled to be playing there. What seemed like the entirety of bandom such as it was then were there, and while there was glee - Brian sweeping up confetti! Gerard picking up Mikey! group hugs! - there was also uncertainty - did Gerard just say they'd neVER PLAY AGAIN??? - and the knowledge that whatever happened it would be a good while before we heard from them again. I remember fandom detoxing with great reluctance, and a lot of people drifting away as the months went on. I'm pretty sure I was one of them.
- I remember "Desolation Row" and the sudden resurgence of both fandom and band, all of them taking up twitter like it was their own personal message service and blogging like crazy; the little run of shows including the LA(?) one where they played a couple of new songs, and me buzzing around for a while after watching the videos because HELLO BAND I MISSED YOU GUITAR SOLOS SOUNDED SO SLOW AND DULL WITHOUT YOU. I remember the articles hyping the album up, saying it was different and amazing. I remember Bandit being born, and saving fandom's ridiculous, amazing, loving reactions because it felt like family again
- I remember the rumours about Bob, dismissed as utter nonsense because it was some nobody radio station in the middle of nowhere why would they know anything?
- I remember the Art Is The Weapon video, and the fizzing delight in my stomach because my band. Making happy music! Wearing colours! Not requiring me to drastically reorient myself away from the music and aesthetic I was currently enjoying to like their's! I remember reading the advance reviews and praying that Planetary and the ex-"Death Before Disco" were as great as they sounded
- I remember listening to the album the first time as that Dr D podcast thing and loving that Planetary and "Party Poison" and "Bulletproof Heart" were everything I ever wanted them to be
- I remember going to see them a third time, as a present to myself for my 21st birthday, four and a half years after the first time. I went with my cousin, the first person I went to a concert with who wanted to be right there with me in the pit; she and I have always had similar tastes in music, which always helped to bond us cause we don't see each other that much. We commiserated afterwards about how young some of the other kids were, how old they would've been when TBP came out, Revenge, Bullets. Only the fact that I was going to see her and MyChem got me there at all: I was traveling alone for the first time, across continents (well, sort of) and there were so many things that could go wrong. The night before I was a sobbing mess of nerves. But I did it. For her, and for them. And it was awesome. And I've never been afraid of traveling alone since.
The rest is too recent to be worth remembering. My Chemical Romance did not save my life, but they made it bearable when I needed it, and through them I learned that I can do things on my own, that I shouldn't be afraid, that I am never really alone if I don't want to be. That a band can be more than the makers of cool music; that they can stand for feminism and anti-homophobia and gender non-conformity, for unapologetic nerdery, for unironically wanting to make the world a better place.
&band;
Stop your crying, helpless feeling
Dry your eyes and start believing
There’s one thing they’ll never take from you
And we’ll never be the same
Like ghosts in the snow
Like ghosts in the sun
Reading other people's reactions, I feel kind of...bad that I'm not a sobbing mess. They were my band, my favourites, my comfort blanket, so why am I basically okay? I was okay on Saturday (though my iPod chose to follow WTTBP with "The Light Behind Your Eyes" and my vision did get a little blurry) and I was okay on Sunday listening to their discography through (though wow "The World Is Ugly" you need to stop), and I'm okay now. I mean, I know I'm not really in bandom anymore, but I still do consider myself a part of it, even though I'm not reading the fic (or writing it) because they're my boys.
And honestly? I think it's FOB. FOB and MCR were the two cornerstones of my bandom experience (Panic were the slightly lower third stone), and if having FOB back means MyChem have to go...I am okay with that. Or put it this way: I'd be a lot less okay if neither of them were around, because of what they mean to me and the things I associate with them and feeling like my childhood non-adulthood was well and truly ended and nope nope nope DNW. So yes, I am ok.
Also helping is everything that's been said by people other than fandom: Lyn-Z and Brian (Brian! I thought I read somewhere that he was bad-mouthing them all over the place a couple of years ago, so well fucking done for getting over yourself enough to comfort us dude) and Kitty and Jared Leto (and the Echelon) and Pete. And the articles, they're pretty great too.
And Dewees. And I gotta say, I don't understand why this isn't more of a thing? Like, a) FOB have just come back from a hiatus where up to the last minute they were adamant that they were never ever ever getting back together, and b) " It doesn’t mean it’ll never happen again, but it means that everyone wants a real break from it. They don’t want to say it’s a hiatus because then it still lingers over your head. If you say you’re breaking up, cool, then you can stop. You don’t have to answer emails anymore until you want to."
And, of course, Gerard. I read that with a stupid grin on my face, because you're goddamn right they were spectacular, and you're goddamn right they're the only fucking band to ever refer to themselves with stupid-amazing sci-fi robot metaphors.
I've seen other people doing this, so y'know, monkey see (also my memories are pretty awesome and I want to revel in them):
- I remember "I'm Not Okay" starting to be played on what felt like ALL THE MTV CHANNELS (but was probably only Kerrang LBR) and learning that the sight of that fake green movie-rating scrren meant I should switch channels pronto because ugh ugh stupid screamy rock band blegh
- I remember finally giving in to the inevitable (presumably after I'd downloaded "Sugar We're Goin Down") and getting "I'm Not Okay" and "Helena", then constantly having them on repeat on my crappy-but-resilient first mp3 player
- I remember queuing up "It's Not A Fashion Statement" before leaving the boarding house in the morning to revise for my GCSEs, because fuck my so-called friends I didn't need them anyway
- I remember buying LOTMS not long after it came out and bouncing out of the store with it in its bag
- I remember listening to the live CD while they were playing the first London show of the Black Parade-era in lieu of being there
- I remember all the "lol yeah sure Gerard's blond" comments on chemicalromance, and the mini!MCR comic made to commemorate the occasion. (sidenote: if you don't know about minimcr you are missing out and need to go back through there, and then to the linked comm (which WOW I DID NOT NOW SHE'D CARRIED ON HELLO NEW ART YES GOOD), immediately. It's probably best done chronologically, because the art gets better, and also because then you get the in jokes like Bob's cat)
- I remember the first few stills from the WTTBP set, all apocalyptic and one with Mother War being all creepy and shit, and then the news of the injuries and something about a car crash (?)
- I remember watching that first performance of WTTBP and my entire body humming with this sense of this yes this, and offering my firstborn child from a rip of the studio version when it was put up on MySpace (MYSPACE) five minutes later (which...I guess means I owe someone my firstborn? Whoops)
- I remember Gerard walking with a cane and Bob with the icepack on his face and then the news that he'd had to be rushed to hospital because STAPH INFECTION PRACTICALLY IN HIS BRAIN and fandom's collective worry and well-wishes
- I remember that ridic amazing press conference video thing, and the iTunes TBP walkthrough (WHICH I STILL HAVE, FUCKING SUCCEED) and Gerard's earnest little "[that's what we're trying to tell them,] we want [the fans] to live" fading into the last thirty seconds of FLW (♥ ♥ ♥)
- I remember them playing "Dead!" live at Reading and Leeds and putting it on my mp3 because crazy energy and guitarrrr and counting in yesss
- I remember that Black Parade site with the heart monitor beeping, and that I was on a Good Charlotte forum when I saw one of the offtopic threads about how the whole album was up
- I remember counting down the weeks before TBP was released in the back of several of my exercise books, a tickbox for every lesson over that meant another day closer
- I remember ordering the £70 boxset and giving no fucks that it was almost a quarter of my year's allowance
- I remember listening to TBP all the way through non-stop on the way back from a school trip to New York, because my best friend was staying with family there and no one else gave enough fucks about me to sit next to me on the bus or the plane. I remember appreciating that TBP was a rollercoaster of an album, an angry defiant song followed by a mellower sadder one, and then right back to the one-two-fuck-you, and following right along with it
- I remember using it as a comfort blanket when the rest of my life was stacking up, decisions about my future I didn't want or know how to make, and how the album blocked it all out and shut me away in a little bubble of musical reassurance that everything was gonna be okay
- I remember going to see them for the first time, my first proper, in-the-pit rockshow and the only one to date I've ever bothered to wait in line for. They played "Headfirst For Halos" and only half the crowd knew it; several girls outside the doors earlier had "I ♥ GW" on their arms and I wondered why they were so enamoured of the dumbfuck American president. They were somehow larger than life, and almost surreal because they were really there. I am only 0.1% ashamed to say that my clearest memory is of Gerard slooowly licking up his palm and my brain sputtering
- I remember the Halloween show with the facepaint; the "thirty is old for trees" interview; Mikey taking time off tour because he'd just got married and Gerard posting about it on the website
- I remember wondering vaguely whether the stagegay would start up again, then coming back from holiday to find Projekt Revolution in full swing. I remember the livestream "fight", the night half of them went shirtless, the morning after the last show where fandom woke up and went "...Gerard did WHAT NOW? WEARING A UNICORN SHIRT?"
- I remember going to see them a second time in Paris, a small venue when they were so big in the UK; they'd ditched the costumes and were just them, jeans and t-shirts and verve. Afterwards, my dad (who'd come with me because BIG CITY: DANGEROUS and also because hey there are guitars why not) informed me that FOB were better. I informed him that clearly his hearing was impaired
- I remember the tours kept coming, while everyone's hair grow longer - especially Bob's, which was Viking-like and glorious by the end - and health problems kept hitting and fandom joked they were cursed (I'd link the miniMCR comic on the subject but it won't load :( )
- I remember the last show, in Madison Square Garden, Gerard and Mikey interviewed earlier in the day and tired but so fucking thrilled to be playing there. What seemed like the entirety of bandom such as it was then were there, and while there was glee - Brian sweeping up confetti! Gerard picking up Mikey! group hugs! - there was also uncertainty - did Gerard just say they'd neVER PLAY AGAIN??? - and the knowledge that whatever happened it would be a good while before we heard from them again. I remember fandom detoxing with great reluctance, and a lot of people drifting away as the months went on. I'm pretty sure I was one of them.
- I remember "Desolation Row" and the sudden resurgence of both fandom and band, all of them taking up twitter like it was their own personal message service and blogging like crazy; the little run of shows including the LA(?) one where they played a couple of new songs, and me buzzing around for a while after watching the videos because HELLO BAND I MISSED YOU GUITAR SOLOS SOUNDED SO SLOW AND DULL WITHOUT YOU. I remember the articles hyping the album up, saying it was different and amazing. I remember Bandit being born, and saving fandom's ridiculous, amazing, loving reactions because it felt like family again
- I remember the rumours about Bob, dismissed as utter nonsense because it was some nobody radio station in the middle of nowhere why would they know anything?
- I remember the Art Is The Weapon video, and the fizzing delight in my stomach because my band. Making happy music! Wearing colours! Not requiring me to drastically reorient myself away from the music and aesthetic I was currently enjoying to like their's! I remember reading the advance reviews and praying that Planetary and the ex-"Death Before Disco" were as great as they sounded
- I remember listening to the album the first time as that Dr D podcast thing and loving that Planetary and "Party Poison" and "Bulletproof Heart" were everything I ever wanted them to be
- I remember going to see them a third time, as a present to myself for my 21st birthday, four and a half years after the first time. I went with my cousin, the first person I went to a concert with who wanted to be right there with me in the pit; she and I have always had similar tastes in music, which always helped to bond us cause we don't see each other that much. We commiserated afterwards about how young some of the other kids were, how old they would've been when TBP came out, Revenge, Bullets. Only the fact that I was going to see her and MyChem got me there at all: I was traveling alone for the first time, across continents (well, sort of) and there were so many things that could go wrong. The night before I was a sobbing mess of nerves. But I did it. For her, and for them. And it was awesome. And I've never been afraid of traveling alone since.
The rest is too recent to be worth remembering. My Chemical Romance did not save my life, but they made it bearable when I needed it, and through them I learned that I can do things on my own, that I shouldn't be afraid, that I am never really alone if I don't want to be. That a band can be more than the makers of cool music; that they can stand for feminism and anti-homophobia and gender non-conformity, for unapologetic nerdery, for unironically wanting to make the world a better place.
&band;
Stop your crying, helpless feeling
Dry your eyes and start believing
There’s one thing they’ll never take from you
And we’ll never be the same
Like ghosts in the snow
Like ghosts in the sun