After listening to My Chemical Romance a bit in middle school and finally delving deeper into their discography earlier this year, I got the chance to see them perform live in Newark, NJ at the Prudential Center on September 20th.
When my friends and I finally arrived at the venue, we immediately all went to the merch table and bought some merch. I ended up getting three shirts and spent way too much money in the process. Something I noticed while looking around the venue was that everyone had amazing outfits, and a majority of the people there looked like they were dressed up for a fashion show. I couldn’t stop myself from admiring everyone else’s outfits there.
My friends and I were also raving over what outfit Gerard Way would be wearing tonight since he has been dressing up in different outfits during both the UK and NA legs of the tour.
Before any of the openers came up onto the stage, they had to clean up the stage first, and a guy came up to vacuum the stage. He had a shirt that said “vacuum guy” on the back of it, and the spotlight was on him as he vacuumed the stage. While he was vacuuming, the song “Pony” by Jump on It played in the background.
There were two openers for the concert: The Homeless Gospel Choir and Thursday. Both of these openers are based in the U.S., with The Homeless Gospel Choir based in Pittsburg, PA, and Thursday based in New Brunswick, NJ.
The Homeless Gospel Choir had a punk sound to them, and performed some of their songs, such as “Future Ghosts,” “Tender Hearted Jellyfish Alien Boyfriend,” and “Ripoff.” I thoroughly enjoyed the music they played, and I’m definitely going to check out more of their music soon. You can find their entire setlist played tonight here.
Next, the band Thursday played, and they played some of their songs, such as “The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (of Control),” “Jet Black New Year,” and “Understanding in a Car Crash.” The frontman of the band, Geoff Rickley, produced My Chemical Romance’s debut album, titled I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. When Thursday performed “Jet Black New Year,” they had Gerard come out and sing with them on stage. With their performance of “Understanding in a Car Crash,” the frontman of the band Circa Survive, Anthony Green, came out and sang with them on stage. You can find their entire setlist played tonight here.
Finally, after both of the openers had performed, it was time for My Chemical Romance to perform. Before their performance, there were some static noises playing, in order to get everyone pumped up. A little bit afterward, they walked onto the stage and started the concert off with their new single, “The Foundations of Decay.”
Something that my friends and I noticed immediately when they came onto the stage is that Gerard was dressed up as a bat, with black leather boots on. I wasn’t trying to get my hopes up too high, since when he performed “Jet Black New Year” with Thursday earlier, he was wearing a normal outfit. I was happy to see that he changed within the time before he went to perform on stage, but I honestly would’ve been content with seeing him wear anything, to be honest.
After performing their first song, they jumped into one of their most well-known songs, “I’m Not Okay (I Promise).” This was one of the first songs by My Chemical Romance that I discovered in middle school. The way I discovered this song was not normal. I didn’t find out this song existed by surfing on YouTube and coming across it on a YouTube video. Instead, I was reading a story on Wattpad, and something happened in the story and I commented “I’m not okay.” Soon after, other users started replying to my comment with “I promise.” I was very confused about this, so I decided to search up what they were referring to, and that was my first exposure to My Chemical Romance as a kid.
After “I’m Not Okay (I Promise),” Gerard brought up how much he had been looking forward to this tour, and expressed how much the band Thursday meant to them as a band. He also mentioned how Geoff taught him how to sing “This Is The Best Day Ever” because he didn’t know anything about dynamics. They then brought Geoff Rickley from Thursday onto the stage to sing that song with them.
A little bit later, they played one of my favorite songs off of their album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, called “I Never Told You What I Do For A Living.” I started screaming my head off when I heard the first guitar notes play, and looked over at my friends just to see them as shocked as I was. The last time they played that song was in 2008!
Throughout the show, they played some more of my favorite songs, such as “Vampires Will Never Hurt You,” “The World Is Ugly,” “Boy Division,” “The Ghost of You,” and “Demolition Lovers.” On our way to the show, my friends and I were freaking out because I saw on Twitter that they soundchecked Demolition Lovers, and I kept on telling my friends that they would definitely play it tonight. The last time they played that song was in 2004!
After playing “Vampires Will Never Hurt You,” Gerard said how much he missed the people in New Jersey and thanked everyone for coming out tonight. He also added that he wants to take a drive around his hometown, Belleville, NJ because he hasn’t seen it in so long.
They ended the performance tonight with the song “The Kids From Yesterday” off of their album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. I feel like this was a great song to end the show with since it was so emotional and just beautiful hearing them play it. You can find their entire setlist played tonight here.
The performance finally ended, and overall, I enjoyed the concert a lot, and seeing My Chemical Romance perform live was an amazing experience that I’ll never forget. It was such a great experience that I had to convince myself not to buy a ticket the next night for their second show in Newark, NJ. The post-concert depression, unfortunately, hit me like a truck right after I left the concert venue.