ATLANTA DATE I AM COMING FOR YOU ALSKFJSL

Seeing MCR in concert has been something I dreamed about when I first found the band in 2006/7 (It was some time in that school year, 5th grade).  My mom would listen to the Welcome to the Black Parade album in the car and the song Blood played once and I knew I was hooked on them for life.  But I was too young to get to see them whenever they toured.  They would go to places too far away to go to shows with my mom who liked them.  And on dates that didn’t work for my other mom to go with me, even though she didn’t like them.  (Yes, I have 2 moms.  One is into the emo scene and has the biggest crush on Amy Lee.  The other is a country music head but able to chaperon me to events as a kid.)  So I waited and waited until the day I would be an adult and they would still be touring and I could finally see them!  And then, one spring day in my junior year of high school, they announced they were disbanding.  And until very recently, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would never see them live.  When they announced this current tour, the tickets sold out before I could get tickets.  And then the tour kept getting postponed with Covid so I thought it would eventually get canceled.  But then, a miracle happened.  It didn’t get canceled.  And I was able to buy a resale ticket.  A dream quite literally 16+ years in the making got to come true last night.  And what a dream it was.

For the openers, we had different bands than the night before, apparently.  Homeless Gospel Choir was up first.  I wasn’t really into them, their lyrics were pretty basic and repetitive, though, so they got people singing along pretty easily.  I also disapprove of the image they had up on the screens during their performance, it included a modified version of a racist flag that made me cringe.  And they introduced like 3 out of 4 songs they played as “this is a protest song!” and the one they didn’t was a love song.  Coolest thing that happened was they brought out Frank Iero to sing one of these protest songs with them and DUDE HE IS SO SMOL.  People told me this but he is for real so much tinier than I thought.

Next up was Midtown.  I am loosely familiar with their music so it was kinda cool to see them.  I hadn’t done any research into who was opening before they came on stage so both of these groups were a complete surprise for me.  The singer kept teasing about how his kids were in the crowd and he was trying to find them.  They were in my section at the time (left after they finished their set) and screaming their heads off to get his attention and he still couldn’t find them until the folks in the pit noticed them and all pointed.  And then he monologed a bit about how “we didn’t wanna come on this tour because now our kids are gonna think we’re cool”.  They seem like fun and chill folks to be in a band fandom for.  They also got the crowd to crouch down to jump on the beat and there were like 20 people resolutely standing there straight-faced and not even looking around, still standing up in the middle of this otherwise crouched down pit which was kinda awkward looking.

And then.  Then it was time.  See, I knew that Gerard had dressed up in one of their lil fits the previous night so I was worried I wouldn’t get a fun outfit but the glittery gold suit jacket? Was perfect.  I probably would have combusted if I had gotten an outfit that showed off his legs so that is for the better.  I was in a solid side-view position but perfectly even with where they would all stand if they came to the edges of the stage so I got very clear views of their profiles.  Also, my phone is rude and takes really high quality while zoomed all the way in videos but potato quality pictures?  I do not understand and need someone better with cameras/phones to help me see if that’s a settings thing I can fix.....

I started to hyperventilate a bit and cry when they came on stage and started Foundations.  That was time for tears number one of the night but nowhere near the last.  I’d brought my Dreamcatcher lightstick and set it to white, hoping to match to the colors of the stage lighting as best I could throughout the show, but the person standing next to me complained that the white was too bright and the only color they were okay with was the blue so I had a blue light over in section 17 the whole show, showing off my attempts at wotagei cuz I am nothing if not idol trash.  Emo to Kpop pipeline baby!

I was on the side of the stage where Frank and Mikey usually hang out and Mikey kept walking over to the stairs to get onto the stage to try and interact with our section.  It was blocked by equipment on the stage for everyone else, I think, so it was like a personal show lmao.  That man is more attractive than it is fair.......that or I just generally have a thing for bassists....Either way, he is very nice to look at lmao.

The setlist has been different for every show so the only guaranteed thing that I knew was the first song would be Foundations of Decay.  I was really hoping for a few Danger Days songs because that’s my favorite album.  So getting Na Na Na, Summertime, S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/, and Planetary (GO!) on this setlist was everything my heart could have asked for.  I cried all through Summertime because I think that’s like in my top 3 favorite MCR songs.  I screamed my heart out all through House of Wolves.  Something about that song makes me wish I could do metal screaming vocals, I don’t know why.  

I read that this was the first time that Planetary (GO!) was performed since 2012 which was awesome!  That song is such a perfect pump-up song, one of my go-tos when I need to physically pump myself up.  I’m certain that every single person in that stadium was jumping during the chorus and it was so beautiful.

I cried again during Welcome to the Black Parade (obviously) and Skylines and Turnstiles.  These are the two most iconic MCR songs I think.  I would give my firstborn to be able to experience listening to either of these songs again for the first time.  And that experience pales to what it felt like live.  If there is any song that the whole crowd knows all the words to, it's gotta be Black Parade and I just felt so at home and hugged by the voices of everyone who was there.  It was indescribably wonderful.  And Skylines and Turnstiles was much the same.  I felt a connectedness to everyone there and the members on stage.

Bury Me In Black was I think the only song I don’t know the words to at all so I took a video of part of it.  I tried to zoom in on close enough to be able to see Ray cuz he didn’t move around at all, he stuck on his side of the stage.  But he stepped backward and I couldn’t see him anymore but then Mikey kept walking out of frame and then JUMPING back in.  Quite literally.

It all happened in such a blur that I barely remember anything that Gerard said in their comments to the crowd but here are a few things I do remember.  During I wanna say Helena? Someone in the pit threw a still half-full can of beer on the stage and it almost hit Gerard’s little tech set-up and he was very cutely complaining about it after the fact.  And then, apparently, Kerang put out a review of their Riot Fest show that has since been edited to not include a diss at how MCR kept pausing their set to tell the crowd to back up and how it was “ruining the flow” of their set.  Which Gerard had, apparently, read before this got removed from the article so they had a little moment of “someone said we don’t have any flow” and OMG this is the most New Jersey I have ever heard them sound.  Like they don’t have much of an accent beyond generic north east atlantic I think but he sounded full NJ and it was the funniest.

Frank’s full family was in attendance it seems.  We spotted his dad before the show started and then his wife and kids were in the backstage area that was next to my section so we could see them.  His kids came out in front of the stage (between stage and barricade) to watch for a few songs and one of them was filming on their phone and good lord that’s the best fancam video from the tour, I’m certain, but we will never get to see it unless Frank posts it himself.  They were very enthusiastically enjoying the music and when Frank saw them, he looked really happy too.  It was sweet and made me glad I was on the side where I was to see that.

His kids went backstage again and the whole band left the stage for a minute or two.  I thought about sitting at this point until they came back but by the time I’d decided to, they were coming back.  They seriously played 17 songs with minimal breaks between songs and then were off stage for just a few minutes.  The stamina these guys all have is amazing.  They came back with Vampires Will Never Hurt You which is one of the songs that makes me go ABSOLUTELY crazy.  Any energy I physically had left was exerted in this song.  I was really hoping (even though I doubted it) that they would play Vampire Money right after that but instead, we got a super rare edition COVER.  It was a cover of the Sid Vicious cover of Frank Sinatra’s My Way.  My body recognized it but it took until the chorus for my brain to realize it at which point the glitzy gold suit made sense.

This concert felt like a love letter to NJ.  I think I saw someone else say that on TikTok and I agree wholeheartedly.  I’m never more happy and grateful and proud to be from NJ than when we talk about the musicians that are from here.  Coincidentally, so many of my favorites come from here and I’m very grateful for that fact.

After My Way, the show was over.  I stumbled out of the venue and started hyperventilating on the way back to Penn Station.  To the random person who stopped me to compliment my shirt, you don’t know this but I think you helped pull me back to reality just enough to keep from having a panic attack on the middle of the streets in Newark so thank you very very much.  Didn’t need my map to get to Penn cuz pretty much the whole stadium was going there too which prompted a person there to say the funniest thing of the night when I walked past them “Oh my gosh, it’s a horde of emos coming at me!”.  Made me laugh really hard.

All in all, this was a truly magical time.  I think this is as close to a religious experience as my atheist ass is ever gonna get.  I am so fucking glad they decided to come back and tour again.  I am even more fucking glad I got a ticket to see them.  I cried at least eight times that day - before, during, and after the show.  And I’m crying again now thinking about it.  Shoutout to me back in 06, be glad your mom’s got good taste and shares it with you!  I’m now even more excited for WWYF when I get to see them again!!