NME Scans - Reading Review / Gerard Way Interview [Text]

Killjoys' Revenge

Last time around it ended in piss, broken glass and ignominy. In 2011 My Chemical Romance come back fighting and prove they Know how to throw one hell of a party.

MAIN STAGE
LEEDS, SATURDAY

"So I come out, I look like a super creep, I have white hair, everything about me says, 'Throw piss at me'." You can call Gerard Way many things, but don't accuse him of not being self-aware. He's talking backstage at the mindpoint between two career- defining shows at Reading and Leeds 2011, remembering the last time his band, My Chemical Romance, played here, back in 2006. He can laugh about ir now.

"It's not simply, 'We got bottled because everybody in the fucking world hated us.' We had to play after goddam Slayer! 'The Black Parade' hadn't come out and nobody had heard it. So we came out and there's about 15-20 kids who were diehard metalheads saying stuff, and I am in an extra combative mood and I say... 'Alright Reading, fuck it, give me all you've got!'"

Most people in that situation  might have a little cry and move on. Not Gerard Way. Gerard swore to his brother Mikey that he wouldn't come back to this festival without headlining. He then made sure his band became amazing and popular enough to one day get booked to headline.

So when that dream came true, he did the logical thing under the circumstances and referred to Queen. Queen, you see, were famously bottled in Paris one year.

A defiant Freddie Mercury had sworn to returns as the biggest band in the world. Gerard made the only rational decision one could make in that situation: he pinched producer Rob Cavallo's phone book, copied down Brian May's email and sent a whoring message out, explaining their dilemma. A dialogue developed. Gerard posited the idea of Brian joining them onstage at Reading. Brian had various questions. It was nailed with Brian's immortal line: "Now we've got the costume sorted, the rest is easy."

Saturday afternoon, Leeds Festival, and Gerard Way is describing Reading 2011 as the greatest show of his life. So we push him for expansion. "The best shows are the ones where there's a lot riding on it and everything to lose and the unknown, you don't know what's gonna happen. All we focused on for six months was making that as bright and brilliant and wonderful and colourful as we could. I remember that last interview we did I said when the temperature is up for us, then that's when we shine and so to come out to that reaction, and to give 'Danger Days...' the proper show that it deserved - that was what was in my head when we made the record, to give it the colour and the party and the danger, just to colour up on the world."

And so it was. Having made such a big pre-show of their Fabulous Killjoys alter egos, MCR had spent their entire touring campaign playing them down. But now, Party Poison, Fun Ghoul, Kobra Kid and Jet Star make their fist ever public appearance, and yet stuttering behind the stage, smoking ill-advised pre-show fags whilke hoiking his arse-crack-chafing leather pants into a comfortable space, Gerard confesses: "We played at T In The Park and I went to see Deadmau5, and there were kids with road-flares and laser pens, and I was jealous. Because that was what I had envisaged the whole of 'Danger Days...' as being, just colourful anarchy. And that's what we got last night."

Colourful anarchy works for MCR, judging on the fireworks and pink smokebombs that greet 'Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na)' as it boings into 'I'm not OKay (I Promise)'. But what's remarkable is how they maintain that level of adrenaline after the initial expensive flourish, and everything falls wildly into place. Because pyro exists only to support the song.

Witness further comic-book-stadium redemption of 'Famous Last Words', the idiotic punk of 'Teenagers' and, for its live debut, the post-nuclear thunder-ballad 'S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W'. And that's the truth of it. At the end there's the 'Cancer' song and 'Welcome To The Black Parade' and confetti cannons. Confetti cannons!

Always good.

But what really shines is that we have truly never seen any band, ever, try and give so much to any performance ever. And that counts.

To witness Gerard, as he leaves for the bus: "I want youth, I want chaos, I want love affairs, I want people falling in love, I want people proud of their favourite fucking punk band they saw in a basement. It's what I wanted. And I got it."

Dan Martin

You can see the scans here!