MCR's Planetary Go! Music Video Shoot
WATCH ME TRY TO MAKE A FAST RECAP. I have to be on a plane in 9 no 8 hours. I STILL NEED TO SLEEP. OMG.
HEADLINES:
HOW DID I END UP HERE?
Wednesday morning I logged on to my computer at like 8:53am to check my bank balance and dancinbutterfly pokes me on AIM. She's like "ARE YOU PLANETARY GOING?" I was like "WTF? WHAT?" She's like "DID YOU NOT HEAR?" I was like "WHAT? NO? WHAT? I AM NOT AWAKE YET. GO AWAY. GRUMBLE. GRUMBLE. BITCHBITCHBITCH." She was like "MCR are shooting their music video tomrrow night, tix are about to go onsale!" I was like "TOMORROW NIGHT IS BAD. I HAVE EARLY FLIGHT FRIDAY. I AM SICK. CAN'T THINK. NOT AWAKE. GRUMBLEBITCHBITCH. I have to be at a doctor's appointment in 15 mins, which is the only reason I am even AWAKE." Then she sent me the link to the ticket sale, like "If you have time later, check it out" totally not acknowledging my bitchface, and I clicked and then they WERE ON SALE. JUST LIKE THAT. And I was like AGH, fuckit, they are five pounds, I will buy one and if I don't use it it's only five pounds. (SERIOUSLY, STILL NOT AWAKE. STILL NOT THINKING.)
AND I DID. THE SALE WENT THROUGH. (I did not expect it to. My hands were SHAKING when I put in my details. I couldn't find my fucking CREDIT CARD. PANIC PANIC.) It didn't really hit me til I'd logged off and headed for my appt that HOLY FUCK I AM GOING TO SEE BE AT THE MUSIC VIDEO SHOOT. HOLY FUCK WHY DID I ONLY BUY ONE TICKET, I COULD HAVE BOUGHT TWO? *FLAILFLAIL* Anyways, dancinbutterfly is sensible and got two, so she invited fellow Londoner xclusiveantonym AKA ONE SHOE GIRL along. I got to tell her about it. She was on the bus. She FREAKED OUT. It was GREAT.
OKAY FOX, SKIP THE PRELIMINARIES, LET'S GET TO THE GOOD STUFF!
- Estimated 250 people in attendance. Seriously - the O2 Academy Islington is TINY. Every other time I've been there has been for old industrial bands no one's listened to for 10 years. TINY. Motherfuckers were RIGHT THERE.
The queue:
- While we were queueing the director - Michael - and his team were running around shooting video of people in the crowd - dancinbutterfly got their attention and they filmed us saying where we were and what was going on. They told us to be VERY SERIOUS and there was to be NO SMILING. THIS WAS DIFFICULT. They wrapped xclusiveantonym in a green sheet saying "we'll key that out with cool swirly colours later". YEAH, I HAVE NO IDEA. They were on the good drugs? IDEK.
- We were told the band would play a 30 min set and do Planetary 3-4 times.
- We got inside, eventually:
I've been to the O2 Islington before. It is NOT a big venue. There is an upper balcony area, which was locked off to us, and we saw a lot of hangers on hanging on the balcony and they eventually shot footage from there. Not long after we arrived we saw a brief glimpse of Mikeyway on the balcony as he rushed backstage.
- There was some standing around, the director gave a short talk and after some waiting the guys busted on stage!
WHAT WERE THEY WEARING?? (BECAUSE I AM TWELVE AND THIS IS IMPORTANT)
Blurry photo is blurry.
Ray (because he was first on stage and because HE'S MY FAVOURITE) - same uniform as the London Wembley show, White T-shirt with the American Widow, black leather jacket (WHICH HE DID NOT TAKE OFF DESPITE THE HEAT) and jeans. He was BEAMING ALL OVER THE PLACE ALL NIGHT AGAIN. I LOVE HIM SO FUCKING MUCH.
Mikey - decided to bring back an old favourite from his wardrobe and stepped out in his H&M girls section green zebra stripe top. There were MANY genuine Mikeyway smiles tonight. MANY. The man is FUCKING GORGEOUS.
Frank - Black polo shirt with white trim buttoned ALL THE WAY UP and a BROWN CARDIGAN (ARE YOU SIXTY, FRANK?) and one black fingerless glove. Seriously, how the fuck does that boy NOT MELT ON STAGE? I will never know.
Gerard - His bumblebee looking shirt, the blue one with the yellow sleeves, same as what he was wearing in Manchester I think. And his freshly dyed hair looked HOT. Oh and he had "CRIME IS DOOMED" written on his forearm in marker. AGAIN. THE GRANT MORRISON FANBOYING WILL NEVER END.
Pedicone was wearing a BL/ind shirt and Dewees, shit IDK he hides behind his keyboards. His hair was cute though.
Anyway YES - they busted right out there and gave us a short set:
NaNaNa - EVERYONE sang along, and the venue was so small you could HEAR everyone.
Vampire Money - THEY LOVE DOING THIS ONE SO MUCH. Especially Ray. MY HEARTEYES FOR RAY WILL NEVER VANISH OH NO NO. When Mikey did his intro he raised an arm and GRINNED. FUCK HE'S GORGEOUS.
Next song - Gerard gave us a choice - House of Wolves or Our Lady Of Sorrows. Sorrows won by a LANDSLIDE and Gerard seemed really surprised. Frank seemed disappointed and proceeded to wear a FUZZY WOLF HAT for the song, perhaps in protest.
Teenagers - fucking went off. I nearly died in the pit, followed by-
I'm Not Okay - which was on FIRE. FRANK HIT THE FLOOR. He went fucking crazypants. It was AWESOME.
Helena - Gerard did the usual call and response part at the beginning and you could REALLY hear the audience response.
Bulletproof Heart - FUCKING MAGICAL.
They finished with Planetary Go! After Gerard did a big lead up talking about how WE made this song the single because it fucking went OFF, from the first time they played it at the Hammersmith show in London last year. (WHICH I WAS AT - if you remember)
At some point - I can't remember when, the crowd was making heart hands, and Gerard made it back at the crowd "I never knew what this was til I saw you guys doing this at shows. You guys taught me this." (obviously I am paraphrasing, so wording not precise)
After Planetary, they left the stage and then the director dude spoke to us, telling us what was coming up, as in, the boys would take a break, they'd do some takes with just us, then they'd come back and do the song a few times.
There was a short break and we were told they'd be handing out props. These props were:
- Giant Stuffy Animal heads - A puppy, a panda and a penguin:
Sorry, no photos of the penguin.
There were also ray guns handed out, colourful painted hard hats, including the blue one with the teeth painted on the side - which Gerard later said to the lucky person in the front who got to wear it "That is my favourite prop from the NaNa shoot. I love that one. Lucky you." (OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. MY MEMORY IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE.)
Then we were told we'd do a few runthroughs - JUST FOR US, the audience, no band on stage. So they played back Planetary through the speakers and EVERYONE IN THE AUDIENCE SANG. And bounced. And the director told us to "go fucking mental" between takes and everyone started chanting "LETS GO FUCKING MENTAL! LET'S GO FUCKING MENTAL!" in the conga line tune, until me and xclusiveantonym wound it into "YOU DON'T MAKE FRIENDS WITH SALAD! YOU DON'T MAKE FRIEND WITH SALAD!" Because The Simpsons is ALWAYS APPROPRIATE.
So yeah, we gave it our ALL for the camera, even with no boys on the stage and they rewarded us with confetti falling from the balcony.
THEN there was a long break, where when we got bored the audience broke into first TEENAGERS - got through at least 2 verses, 2 choruses before it died and then it became Na Na Na - WHICH IS A VERY HARD SONG TO CHANT YOU GUYS, BUT WE DID A VERY GOOD JOB for at least HALF of it.
When the boys came back out Gerard was like "We could hear you guys back there. You guys are AMAZING. You're like a fucking TRIBE." Then he went on to explain they were gonna perform the song, but to playback, so it was gonna be - in his words - "WEIRD". But they were still gonna play. And, he said, they ALWAYS play live when they're making their videos. NICE TO KNOW GEEWAY.
So take one! They did Planetary. It went off. Gerard was fucking DIVAING everywhere, Ray was fucking BEAMING and BOUNCING and KICKING, Mikey was getting DOWN and Frank was ON like I haven't seen him for a few shows cos he's been sick, they were all giving it like 10000 percent. ON FIRE.
There was more confetti! And balloons! With cat faces drawn on them! And words like PARTY POISON! written on them. And xclusiveantonym tried not to freak out because she HATES BALLOONS WITH A PASSION.
There was a break between the takes and the audience got bored and started chanting "MIKEYFUCKINGWAY! MIKEYFUCKINGWAY!" Which got us a raised arm and a smile from the man himself. A REAL SMILE. YES. And the guys seemed so CHARMED. So of course we did Ray next - "TORO! TORO! TORO!" and Pedicone kicked in with a beat to back it up, and Dewees started tickling the keys in time and it turned into a bit of a jam. Gerard started to BOOGIE even. Like ass-wiggling, bicep curling, finger waving DIVA boogieing. SO FUCKING DORKTASTIC YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE IT. So of course we did Frank next - "FRANK! FRANK! FRANK!" And Pedicone and Dewees kept on with the jamming, Mikey and Ray joined in, like really getting into the groove and Gerard kept on with the fucking stupid crazy funny AWESOME dancing. RIDICULOUS.
So of course it was chanting for Gerard next. And of course this is London so they were chanting "GE-ROD! GE-ROD!" Seriously, they do NOT know how to pronounce his name here. The jamming continued, it was fucking awesome to watch, the guys were just fucking around, making shit up, smiling at each other, Gerard dancing like a fucking DORK. We also chanted for PEDICONE! and, despite efforts from xclusiveantonym and I to get a Dewees chant going, it didn't reallly happen til Gerard pointed at him in an expectant manner. BUT IT HAPPENED. IT was GREAT. WE LOVE YOU JAMES.
They did Planetary! Two more times - there were balloons and confetti falling whenever the chorus kicked in and Gerard made sure to let us know between takes that it was our DUTY to really TAKE OFF when the kick-in happened. And we did. Holy shit the pit was going crazycakes, you'd think there were so many more people there than there was.
Film nerd time - the crew guys who were shooting were using a WIDE range of cameras, I saw one which looked like super 8 film camera and a lot of digital SLRs and some handy-cam looking cameras. They were on stage, in the the photo pit and up on the balcony shooting down. They were getting a crap tonne of footage. I'd say if they wanted to they could make a whole live video from just this one night. Whether or not they will? No idea.
Okay so after the last take of Planetary, Gerard had a quick word to each of the guys - which had me thinking - OOOH I BET THEY DO ONE MORE SONG and they probably just decided on it. And then they finished with VAMPIRES WILL NEVER HURT YOU. And it WENT OFF SO HARD. Being in that venue, with that crowd, and them doing that song - one of the very FIRST MCR SONGS? It was like being at one of the original basement gigs but NOT because of course they are all very THEM and very NOW, but still, Gerard still SHRIEKS HIS SOUL OUT when they play Vampires. And Frank goes OFF. And Ray was BOUNCING. It was EPIC.
EPIC.
So there were thankyous, guitar picks were thrown and kisses were blown and Frank GRINNING GIGANTICALLY as he left the stage (no photo of the twins onstage tonight, interestingly). Frank threw his stinky black fingerless glove into the audience and dancinbutterfly caught it!
IT SMELLS LIKE CIGARETTES AND IEROSWEAT. Yeah, I know you needed to know that.
Anyway. Fucking AMAZING show. The audience was full of killjoys in all their gear, some great outfits and lots of love. I ran into two people who recognised me from other shows - fucking crazy - MY JACKET HAS SEEN SIX MCR SHOWS NOW. SIX.
No meet and greets after, the boys made a speedy exit, but seriously, who needs more than that? IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME! We found piratesunk and saint_viticus outside and got hugs and giggles and OMG DID YOU SEE XYZ's and then we ran for the bus/tube/whatevs.
Also? I HAVE CONFETTI ALL THROUGH MY CLOTHES. EVERYWHERE.
And I have fucking FOB STUCK IN MY HEAD AND IT'S ALL xclusiveantonym's fault.
IN CONCLUSION: I FUCKING LOVE THIS BAND SO FUCKING MUCH. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE VIDEO.
I'M NOT EVEN SORRY FOR ALL THE CAPSLOCK.
HEADLINES:
HOW DID I END UP HERE?
Wednesday morning I logged on to my computer at like 8:53am to check my bank balance and dancinbutterfly pokes me on AIM. She's like "ARE YOU PLANETARY GOING?" I was like "WTF? WHAT?" She's like "DID YOU NOT HEAR?" I was like "WHAT? NO? WHAT? I AM NOT AWAKE YET. GO AWAY. GRUMBLE. GRUMBLE. BITCHBITCHBITCH." She was like "MCR are shooting their music video tomrrow night, tix are about to go onsale!" I was like "TOMORROW NIGHT IS BAD. I HAVE EARLY FLIGHT FRIDAY. I AM SICK. CAN'T THINK. NOT AWAKE. GRUMBLEBITCHBITCH. I have to be at a doctor's appointment in 15 mins, which is the only reason I am even AWAKE." Then she sent me the link to the ticket sale, like "If you have time later, check it out" totally not acknowledging my bitchface, and I clicked and then they WERE ON SALE. JUST LIKE THAT. And I was like AGH, fuckit, they are five pounds, I will buy one and if I don't use it it's only five pounds. (SERIOUSLY, STILL NOT AWAKE. STILL NOT THINKING.)
AND I DID. THE SALE WENT THROUGH. (I did not expect it to. My hands were SHAKING when I put in my details. I couldn't find my fucking CREDIT CARD. PANIC PANIC.) It didn't really hit me til I'd logged off and headed for my appt that HOLY FUCK I AM GOING TO SEE BE AT THE MUSIC VIDEO SHOOT. HOLY FUCK WHY DID I ONLY BUY ONE TICKET, I COULD HAVE BOUGHT TWO? *FLAILFLAIL* Anyways, dancinbutterfly is sensible and got two, so she invited fellow Londoner xclusiveantonym AKA ONE SHOE GIRL along. I got to tell her about it. She was on the bus. She FREAKED OUT. It was GREAT.
OKAY FOX, SKIP THE PRELIMINARIES, LET'S GET TO THE GOOD STUFF!
- Estimated 250 people in attendance. Seriously - the O2 Academy Islington is TINY. Every other time I've been there has been for old industrial bands no one's listened to for 10 years. TINY. Motherfuckers were RIGHT THERE.
The queue:
- While we were queueing the director - Michael - and his team were running around shooting video of people in the crowd - dancinbutterfly got their attention and they filmed us saying where we were and what was going on. They told us to be VERY SERIOUS and there was to be NO SMILING. THIS WAS DIFFICULT. They wrapped xclusiveantonym in a green sheet saying "we'll key that out with cool swirly colours later". YEAH, I HAVE NO IDEA. They were on the good drugs? IDEK.
- We were told the band would play a 30 min set and do Planetary 3-4 times.
- We got inside, eventually:
I've been to the O2 Islington before. It is NOT a big venue. There is an upper balcony area, which was locked off to us, and we saw a lot of hangers on hanging on the balcony and they eventually shot footage from there. Not long after we arrived we saw a brief glimpse of Mikeyway on the balcony as he rushed backstage.
- There was some standing around, the director gave a short talk and after some waiting the guys busted on stage!
WHAT WERE THEY WEARING?? (BECAUSE I AM TWELVE AND THIS IS IMPORTANT)
Blurry photo is blurry.
Ray (because he was first on stage and because HE'S MY FAVOURITE) - same uniform as the London Wembley show, White T-shirt with the American Widow, black leather jacket (WHICH HE DID NOT TAKE OFF DESPITE THE HEAT) and jeans. He was BEAMING ALL OVER THE PLACE ALL NIGHT AGAIN. I LOVE HIM SO FUCKING MUCH.
Mikey - decided to bring back an old favourite from his wardrobe and stepped out in his H&M girls section green zebra stripe top. There were MANY genuine Mikeyway smiles tonight. MANY. The man is FUCKING GORGEOUS.
Frank - Black polo shirt with white trim buttoned ALL THE WAY UP and a BROWN CARDIGAN (ARE YOU SIXTY, FRANK?) and one black fingerless glove. Seriously, how the fuck does that boy NOT MELT ON STAGE? I will never know.
Gerard - His bumblebee looking shirt, the blue one with the yellow sleeves, same as what he was wearing in Manchester I think. And his freshly dyed hair looked HOT. Oh and he had "CRIME IS DOOMED" written on his forearm in marker. AGAIN. THE GRANT MORRISON FANBOYING WILL NEVER END.
Pedicone was wearing a BL/ind shirt and Dewees, shit IDK he hides behind his keyboards. His hair was cute though.
Anyway YES - they busted right out there and gave us a short set:
NaNaNa - EVERYONE sang along, and the venue was so small you could HEAR everyone.
Vampire Money - THEY LOVE DOING THIS ONE SO MUCH. Especially Ray. MY HEARTEYES FOR RAY WILL NEVER VANISH OH NO NO. When Mikey did his intro he raised an arm and GRINNED. FUCK HE'S GORGEOUS.
Next song - Gerard gave us a choice - House of Wolves or Our Lady Of Sorrows. Sorrows won by a LANDSLIDE and Gerard seemed really surprised. Frank seemed disappointed and proceeded to wear a FUZZY WOLF HAT for the song, perhaps in protest.
Teenagers - fucking went off. I nearly died in the pit, followed by-
I'm Not Okay - which was on FIRE. FRANK HIT THE FLOOR. He went fucking crazypants. It was AWESOME.
Helena - Gerard did the usual call and response part at the beginning and you could REALLY hear the audience response.
Bulletproof Heart - FUCKING MAGICAL.
They finished with Planetary Go! After Gerard did a big lead up talking about how WE made this song the single because it fucking went OFF, from the first time they played it at the Hammersmith show in London last year. (WHICH I WAS AT - if you remember)
At some point - I can't remember when, the crowd was making heart hands, and Gerard made it back at the crowd "I never knew what this was til I saw you guys doing this at shows. You guys taught me this." (obviously I am paraphrasing, so wording not precise)
After Planetary, they left the stage and then the director dude spoke to us, telling us what was coming up, as in, the boys would take a break, they'd do some takes with just us, then they'd come back and do the song a few times.
There was a short break and we were told they'd be handing out props. These props were:
- Giant Stuffy Animal heads - A puppy, a panda and a penguin:
Sorry, no photos of the penguin.
There were also ray guns handed out, colourful painted hard hats, including the blue one with the teeth painted on the side - which Gerard later said to the lucky person in the front who got to wear it "That is my favourite prop from the NaNa shoot. I love that one. Lucky you." (OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. MY MEMORY IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE.)
Then we were told we'd do a few runthroughs - JUST FOR US, the audience, no band on stage. So they played back Planetary through the speakers and EVERYONE IN THE AUDIENCE SANG. And bounced. And the director told us to "go fucking mental" between takes and everyone started chanting "LETS GO FUCKING MENTAL! LET'S GO FUCKING MENTAL!" in the conga line tune, until me and xclusiveantonym wound it into "YOU DON'T MAKE FRIENDS WITH SALAD! YOU DON'T MAKE FRIEND WITH SALAD!" Because The Simpsons is ALWAYS APPROPRIATE.
So yeah, we gave it our ALL for the camera, even with no boys on the stage and they rewarded us with confetti falling from the balcony.
THEN there was a long break, where when we got bored the audience broke into first TEENAGERS - got through at least 2 verses, 2 choruses before it died and then it became Na Na Na - WHICH IS A VERY HARD SONG TO CHANT YOU GUYS, BUT WE DID A VERY GOOD JOB for at least HALF of it.
When the boys came back out Gerard was like "We could hear you guys back there. You guys are AMAZING. You're like a fucking TRIBE." Then he went on to explain they were gonna perform the song, but to playback, so it was gonna be - in his words - "WEIRD". But they were still gonna play. And, he said, they ALWAYS play live when they're making their videos. NICE TO KNOW GEEWAY.
So take one! They did Planetary. It went off. Gerard was fucking DIVAING everywhere, Ray was fucking BEAMING and BOUNCING and KICKING, Mikey was getting DOWN and Frank was ON like I haven't seen him for a few shows cos he's been sick, they were all giving it like 10000 percent. ON FIRE.
There was more confetti! And balloons! With cat faces drawn on them! And words like PARTY POISON! written on them. And xclusiveantonym tried not to freak out because she HATES BALLOONS WITH A PASSION.
There was a break between the takes and the audience got bored and started chanting "MIKEYFUCKINGWAY! MIKEYFUCKINGWAY!" Which got us a raised arm and a smile from the man himself. A REAL SMILE. YES. And the guys seemed so CHARMED. So of course we did Ray next - "TORO! TORO! TORO!" and Pedicone kicked in with a beat to back it up, and Dewees started tickling the keys in time and it turned into a bit of a jam. Gerard started to BOOGIE even. Like ass-wiggling, bicep curling, finger waving DIVA boogieing. SO FUCKING DORKTASTIC YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE IT. So of course we did Frank next - "FRANK! FRANK! FRANK!" And Pedicone and Dewees kept on with the jamming, Mikey and Ray joined in, like really getting into the groove and Gerard kept on with the fucking stupid crazy funny AWESOME dancing. RIDICULOUS.
So of course it was chanting for Gerard next. And of course this is London so they were chanting "GE-ROD! GE-ROD!" Seriously, they do NOT know how to pronounce his name here. The jamming continued, it was fucking awesome to watch, the guys were just fucking around, making shit up, smiling at each other, Gerard dancing like a fucking DORK. We also chanted for PEDICONE! and, despite efforts from xclusiveantonym and I to get a Dewees chant going, it didn't reallly happen til Gerard pointed at him in an expectant manner. BUT IT HAPPENED. IT was GREAT. WE LOVE YOU JAMES.
They did Planetary! Two more times - there were balloons and confetti falling whenever the chorus kicked in and Gerard made sure to let us know between takes that it was our DUTY to really TAKE OFF when the kick-in happened. And we did. Holy shit the pit was going crazycakes, you'd think there were so many more people there than there was.
Film nerd time - the crew guys who were shooting were using a WIDE range of cameras, I saw one which looked like super 8 film camera and a lot of digital SLRs and some handy-cam looking cameras. They were on stage, in the the photo pit and up on the balcony shooting down. They were getting a crap tonne of footage. I'd say if they wanted to they could make a whole live video from just this one night. Whether or not they will? No idea.
Okay so after the last take of Planetary, Gerard had a quick word to each of the guys - which had me thinking - OOOH I BET THEY DO ONE MORE SONG and they probably just decided on it. And then they finished with VAMPIRES WILL NEVER HURT YOU. And it WENT OFF SO HARD. Being in that venue, with that crowd, and them doing that song - one of the very FIRST MCR SONGS? It was like being at one of the original basement gigs but NOT because of course they are all very THEM and very NOW, but still, Gerard still SHRIEKS HIS SOUL OUT when they play Vampires. And Frank goes OFF. And Ray was BOUNCING. It was EPIC.
EPIC.
So there were thankyous, guitar picks were thrown and kisses were blown and Frank GRINNING GIGANTICALLY as he left the stage (no photo of the twins onstage tonight, interestingly). Frank threw his stinky black fingerless glove into the audience and dancinbutterfly caught it!
IT SMELLS LIKE CIGARETTES AND IEROSWEAT. Yeah, I know you needed to know that.
Anyway. Fucking AMAZING show. The audience was full of killjoys in all their gear, some great outfits and lots of love. I ran into two people who recognised me from other shows - fucking crazy - MY JACKET HAS SEEN SIX MCR SHOWS NOW. SIX.
No meet and greets after, the boys made a speedy exit, but seriously, who needs more than that? IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME! We found piratesunk and saint_viticus outside and got hugs and giggles and OMG DID YOU SEE XYZ's and then we ran for the bus/tube/whatevs.
Also? I HAVE CONFETTI ALL THROUGH MY CLOTHES. EVERYWHERE.
And I have fucking FOB STUCK IN MY HEAD AND IT'S ALL xclusiveantonym's fault.
IN CONCLUSION: I FUCKING LOVE THIS BAND SO FUCKING MUCH. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE VIDEO.
I'M NOT EVEN SORRY FOR ALL THE CAPSLOCK.