Rocksound Live + Album Reviews
‘LIVE’
A lot can happen in the music world in 18 months; like a colourful butterfly emerging from a goth-tinged cocoon, My Chemical Romance have got hitched, ditched the angst and hired a stylist (and purchased some flame-red hair dye) since their last performance. ‘The Black Parade’ has been replaced with an explosion of colour and synths with a new-found chutzpah to boot.
With little in the way of onstage trickery bar a flag and some unbelievably bright lights, there’s nowhere to hide this evening; it’s a marked removal from the costumes, make-up and theatricality of previous tours.
As four spot-lighted figures appear before tearing into ‘Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)’ there’s enough screaming to leave ears ringing into the night. ‘Thank You For The Venom’ finds Gerard Way wailing like a man possessed, before leading upbeat sing-alongs to ‘Dead!’ and ‘Cemetery Drive’.
Effortlessly segueing back and forth between albums, it seems MCR can do no wrong in what is essentially a ‘greatest hits’ set, just shy of two hours with a massive 22 songs.
New song ‘Planetary (GO!)’ finds us in disco territory with some serious synths, and it goes without saying that ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’ raises the roof.
There’s little between-song banter apart from Way informing the gathered that he’s “punish fucking” them (before apologising to the minors for the profanity), and demanding that the “first-timer boys” remove their shirts to swing over their heads during set highlight ‘You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison’.
Other newie ‘The Only Hope For Me Is You’ is lighters aloft material in the making but bears more than a subtle resemblance to 30 Seconds To Mars, before launching back eight years to ‘Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For The Two Of Us’, with Gerard pulling insanely excited twins from the audience to lend their vocals as he admits “the lyrics make no fucking sense to me sometimes!”.
It comes as something of a surprise when ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’ and ‘Helena’ make an appearance mid-set, but it just proves that the band’s unwavering confidence in their new material, before slowing things down for ‘The Ghost Of You’ and ‘Sleep’. [sic]
There are more than a few tearful faces as a lone Way sings a stripped back version of ‘Cancer’, showcasing an impressive vocal range that is sometimes lost when battling against a wall of guitars and drums. While undoubtedly emotional, it comes as something of an anticlimax after the high-octane energy throughout, particularly when closing new song ‘The Kids From Yesterday’ suffers some technical gremlins and Gerard having to encourage the fans to jump for the first time. An odd ending to an otherwise flawless comeback.
- Jen Thomas
Gerard Way (Vocals) - ‘In Their Words’
RS: “What do you think the key musical influences of ‘Danger Days’ are?”
GW: “To me the album explores a lot of 90s influences, but not the ones you would expect. It’s more about the sounds that people in America are ignoring right now. People are trying to recapture the Nirvana sound or the grunge influence, but with ‘Danger Days…’ I was [listening] to stuff like The Chemical Brothers and trying to capture that.”
RS: “So very British, then?”
GW: “Absolutely. There’s Blur in this record, Pulp, Elastica and some Primal Scream ‘XTRMNTR’ thrown in too. That was some of the stuff that was never accessed in America and even at its peak they were always the harder records to find. I had to go into the city to get my copy of ‘Exit Planet Dust’ (The Chemical Brothers). But more than just musically, the sentiments on The Chemical Brothers’ records were really important, they were about running. When I listened to that record as a kid it made me want to run, it made me want to escape New Jersey. American bands just weren’t singing about stuff like that, they were all so pissed off, but some of the British bands were talking about what I was interested in. That shit was dangerous for me.”
RS: “There was a lot of talk about how the first batch of songs recorded for this album were missing something and didn’t make the grade. Not all of them were scrapped, were they?”
GW: “No. Even though we all agreed to redo this record our producer, Rob Cavallo, fought for certain songs to be given another chance, because he could hear the energy in them. The energy we were looking for he felt we’d captured on a few songs and so he got us to rework them the second time round.”
Review (Rock Sound’s Album of the Month)
My Chemical Romance - Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys’ (Warners)
8 out of 10
Did anyone see this coming? The metamorphosis of MCR, one of the very few bands who - like it or not - can legitimately be said to define a generation, from kings of darkness to comic book sprites seemed to take a lot of people by surprise, but it’s hardly surprising.
Gerard Way has always considered himself to be a storyteller rather than a singer, and the ridiculous and slightly depressing media farrago around ‘The Black Parade’ meant the story they were trying to tell was completely passed over in favour of tabloid morons sensationalising a work of fiction and assuming the band were their creations.
The point, effectively, was missed on a spectacular level.
Hence the colours, the new sounds and the new story. There is no chance whatsoever of mistaking My Chemical Romance for The Killjoys because they’ve cleverly constructed a fantasy world that, on the surface, steers clear of any controversial themes as a retro-futuristic Western of sorts (you can’t be mistaken for being pro-suicide when you’re dressed as a cowboy from 2019, right?).
The band have done what they always wanted to do and disappeared into the music, and in some style - ‘Danger Days…’ fizzes with new sounds: drum machines, synths, thrashy punk rock guitars and electro-pop choruses abound, but nowhere do they lose sight of their vision.
The electronic squirts and gurgles - and the pounding four-to-the-floor beat - that open ‘SING’ couldn’t be further removed from ‘Party Poison’’s razor-edged guitars or ‘Summertime’’s Cure-ish tinges, but Way’s full-throated delivery binds everything together with typical MCR gumption.
Elsewhere, ‘S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W’ steps into rock ballad territory while ‘Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back’ is a snotty glam stomper and ‘Planetary (GO!)’ sounds like it was custom-built for the stadiums and festival PAs of the world; in short, they’ve pushed the boat out like never before, firmly closing the door on the past in the process.
If My Chemical Romance were your favourite band in the past it might feel like it’s going to take some steady reappraisal before you ink their new logo on your rough book. But don’t let the bells and whistles and synthesisers fool you - this is exactly the same band as before. Where ‘The Black Parade’ was their attempt to nail a grand concept by pushing themselves wholly in one direction (and almost burning out in the process, lest we forget) ‘Danger Days...’ simply sounds like they’re having way more fun than ever.
Way’s boyish glee in spitting lines like “The emergency room’s got no vacancy!” (SING) [sic] or “Do you care about the message or the rules they make? / I’ll find you when the sun goes black” (The Kids From Yesterday) is fuelled by the fact that he now inhabits an invented world he can throw himself into without any fear of anyone mistaking him for a cult leader. And with that weight off his -and the band’s - shoulders MCR have made an album that is as fun as it is meaningful, as experimental as it is familiar. Let’s see the Daily Mail hijack this one…
For fans of: Fun, ice cream, laser guns, comics.
-Ben Patashnik
Thank you to manuanya for the scans!