long live the black parade...
I finally was able to do something that I never ever thought I'd be able to do. I finally got to see My Chemical Romance live!!!! I have been waiting 20 years to see them and honestly lost hope that I ever would. It's actually crazy and insane because I've loved them for so so so long... here u go if u wanna just skip to show feelings.
backstory ramblings
Rewinding back, I still remember the first time I had ever saw/heard them.. I was 9 years old and watching MTV. They used to play a lot of alternative stuff back then... back when they actually played music videos in the first place. I remember the first video from them I had ever seen was Helena and as totally dramatic as this sounds, I was so mesmerized by this video. I remember just standing still and watching. I've always been (and still am) a pacer. I will walk back and forth across my living room obsessively while playing music, singing, or just daydreaming. Sometimes I'll just stand in place and rock on my heels. This time though, I just remember standing still and watching.. honestly my jaw was prob hanging open. I was just fascinated by everything. The outfits, the mood, the ballet dancer, that FUCKING rainy umbrella scene (that lives in my mind forever)...
Man... when I tell you.... when I saw Gerard Way for the first time, I was floored. Something inside me definitely awakened and I just was so enamoured with him. In the most innocently and unknowingly parasocial way possible ((I was nine years old and hormones were definitely surging))... we didn't even really use the (now overused) term 'parasocial' back then. I fell so in love with him. To this day, and probably forever, he will be my biggest and most influential (and memorable) celebrity crush ever. You couldn't tell me ANYTHING back then. All I talked about was Gerard (and Mikey sometimes... I guess depending on the day lol). I swore I was going to marry him someday. Again, I was nine years old so this, of course, was just silly little kid stuff. ((oooookay maaaaaybe early teens me thought the same thing...)) There was also just this small feeling of like.. do I wanna date him or do I wanna be him? He was just so beautiful to me.
Obviosuly My Chem became my entire midde school personality. But I guess for good reason. I was not a popular kid in middle school. In fact, I was quiiite on the opposite spectrum. I was that one girl that was the last to be picked for everything and oh MAN if a boy found out that I had a crush on them, they'd actually be MAD... as if I had done something wrong for simply existing. I remember doing a school project that involved some video editing and I had put quite a lot of effort into it becase it was genuinely something I enjoyed... I always spent lots of time doing hobbies and listening to music and just overall creating things. One of the more popular girls decided that ME choosing to work on a project offended her for some reason and called me a loser for putting so much effort into it. She said that I should go outside because WHO would EVER want to work on homework rather than do something fun. This happened a lot and it happened for EVERYTHING... so many stupid things.
I remember I developed a complex because the one boy I had a crush on said that I had big ears while my hair was in a ponytail. I never wore my hair up again until I was maybe 19 years old and tried spacebuns for the first time. A few years later, a new kid came to school and I had liked him. Of course, I was already at a disadvantage since apparently I was an ugly loser monster. One of the girls told him that I was a creepy stalker and made up all these crazy lies to get him to not wanna talk to me. Why even do that? Why did I bother you so much? At this point, I was borderline suicidal and also just riddled with anxiety that I tried bringing up to my doctor but was just met with, “Pull up your big girl pants and deal with it.”
Looking back now... I think a lot of things in my life could've been prevented if I had just gotten help back then. But sadly, I was doomed to be the weird anime music emo girl.. ((back then anime definitely wasn't as popular as it is today.. at least not in my school...)). All of this isn't to say that didn't have some friends.. I even had one that had similar interests as me!! But, kids change so fast so my friendships never really seemed to last long. As sad as it is, I can't say that I have a lifelong childhood friend. ((I actually didn't meet my real friends until I was around 21 at my first job.)) I just never felt like I truly belonged anywhere and especially not in my school or neighborhood/community. For living in a big city, the neighborhood I grew up in was small and crazy close-knit. There's definitely a vibe of.. you follow in the footsteps of your parents, you don't do anything different, go anywhere new.. You marry someone from the neighborhood, stay close, etc. There were a few of us “outcasts” that stuck together outside of school, and I am grateful for the few that hung out with me while it lasted.
So when I saw the music video for I'm Not Okay (my favorite video of theirs!!), I honestly had never felt so seen in my life. Obviously it's fiction, but I mean... some of the members themselves have said that they related to that video in one way or another. If you've never seen it, I suggest that you give it a quick watch, it's good and kinda funny too. But... me being in catholic school and being the odd one out, I most definitely related to the band portraying the misfits in a prestigious prep school. It was then that I just would play the music videos over and over and over on the TV using OnDemand and Music Choice (hell yeah if you remember that). My poor mom knows these songs word for word basically.
After this discovery, I decided I needed their cd but my mom kinda felt weird buying it because of the blood and all on the cover. So for a Christmas gift/secret santa type thing, I remember begging this one girl who I had kind of been off-and-on friends with for Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and I had gotten her Jesse McCartney's album or something. I had never been so happy. I ripped it open and studied the lyrics insert front to back as I listened to it on my blue sony cd player. I listened to it start to finish SO many times (it didn't have a shuffle function anyway hah.) I would listen to it and read the lyrics as I went. I'd analyze everything. I still remember the track order, to this day. I remember Cemetery Drive being one of my favorites. There was just something about it i can't describe.. I made My Chem ((shout out: Fall Out Boy ~!)) my entire personality.. because for once it finally felt like other people knew what I was going through and how I felt. Growing up, my parents were definitely in the “in-crowd” of their peers, so I felt like I could never really talk to them about not fitting in.. I actually felt sometimes like I was letting them down after hearing so many stories of the things they did and the way they were portrayed. I guess I was just scared of being seen as a loser. So it was also around this time I started developing my first hyperfixations and my experiences with escapism.
Skip forward to The Black Parade coming out a few years later. When I saw Gerard with the blonde short cut, I was a bit shocked and kinda sad at first because I LOVED his dark hair and red makeup. BUT, it grew on me... probably because I just liked him a whole lot. I remember liking the album and it also turning into a heavy rotation in my beat up blue cd player... Disenchanted was my favorite song on that album. This is around the time I also discovered their very FIRST album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. That quickly became my favorite album, alongside Three Cheers still holding the second place spot. I remember though, loving Black Parade at this time... and getting into an argument with one of the more popular girls in my class (surprise, the one I mentioned prior). She messaged me on AIM ((I miss AIM, damn)) and said that My Chem was funeral music. I remember quoting the lines from the song and saying it's quite the opposite... it's about LIVING!!!! It's about living despite EVERYTHING ELSE!!! and then I insulted her for liking One Direction... definitely middle school stuff. Either way, for some reason that's a conversation that sticks with me to this day... I just remember thinking like... “am I crazy?” “Why does no one else get it? Do they not hear the same thing I hear?” Was this why I was a loser? Did I overanalyze too much? Or was I a loser because I invested so much of my time and energy in things that weren't tangible in my real life. This band did not know me. Their music was just... music. So why was I so invested in them... actually, in ALL of the music I listened to at the time? (spoiler: I am still like this). Regardless, I carried all of the music I loved with me through many more stages of my life.
The actual truth is... I thought I'd never get to see them live because honestly, I didn't think I'd make it this far. I truly didn't even have a plan for making it past 15. And then I did. And then things sucked again for a while... and then I didn't think I'd make it past 20. But I did. And I'm still here. And I'm still a bit paralyzed. Because I don't know what I'm doing... I don't know what to do or where to go from here. I have no plans.. I just kind of exist day to day. I always dreamed of being a musician. I've always said and still say... “I hope in my next life, I am a performer on stage. I hope I'm in a band. I hope I can make music.” Things are better for me now. But I still have that paralyisis. This crippling fear of rejection and perfectionism. I truly DO hope that I can make music some day. But for now, I just exist... and that's further than I ever thought I'd be.
I digress.
the actual show and feelings on it
When tickets went on sale a few months ago.. I remember shaking so bad and my heart had never beat so fast in my entire life while on the damn Ticketmaster site. Somehow... I was placed #777 in the online queue... and I got them. I got pit tickets... and...I was able to see them. When they walked onto the stage and I saw Gerard.. I sobbed. I cried so hard. (I'm actually crying right now as I type this sentence too, haha.) (Just came back to proofread and cried again.) I became SO emotional... because I was that 9 year old girl again... staring at the TV in awe. I cried for her and for everything I had ever felt. And I cried for ME. NOW. For still being here, despite everything. I was staring at this man... these guys.... who don't even know that they saved my life (actually MANY people's lives) a few times. And... they were so close to me. I could see their faces clearly with my own eyes!! ((I have very poor eyesight.)) I feel like many people in the crowd felt the same as me. I really do. I haven't been in a crowd like that in such a long time. I haven't been in a crowd where you felt the emotions of people singing EVERY song with all of their hearts. Where I wasn't afraid that if I took a quick video, my voice would drown out the rest of the scene. EVERYONE was singing along.
There were these guys who started a mosh and we were all having so much fun. And then... during the more emotional songs, they stopped. We stopped and just... sang.. together. I've been to concerts where the artist will sing a very slow and heartfelt song and people will just continue to talk or scream over it.. and I mean.. it's a concert so I get it, but sometimes the talking can be so disrespectful!!! But not here... everyone would get quiet and just sing along. It was so beautiful. It was one of the best crowds I have been in in such a long time. The show was amazing. They sounded amazing live.. I actually hadn't even thought about the fact that this was a live performance because they sounded straight off of the album! The performance and theater aspect was so incredible and thought-provoking as well. The storyline of TBP portion is really good and I can't wait to see how it progresses from here onto every other show. Mikey was great on his bass and so smiley. He moved around so much!! He used to just stand in place and seem really shy on stage. Frankie was amazing on his guitar and seemed like he was having so much fun. Ray was incredible and so cool doing the solos. Gerard was so.... inspiring and sounded just like he does on the studio version, actually even better. All of the band was just... amazing. It was everything I had ever dreamed that it would be. They even played a song off of Bullets!! They played Headfirst for Halos I was so surprised and happy!! And we were all screaming the lyrics along. I really feel like it healed such a huge, dark, part of me.
It's so odd when you don't think you'll live longer than being a teenager. It's odd seeing my own face sometimes. Especially since I feel like I haven't aged. I feel like I'm still a stuck teenager. But I have gotten older... my face has changed. And then.. to be at this show. To see these guys have also aged too. What a privilege it is to see myself grow older and to see them grow older as well. A privilege I never thought I'd get to experience. But... on the flip side.. now I feel kind of.... lost again? I've fulfilled such a huge stretch goal of my life that I never thought I would. So now I'm also stuck with this conflicting feeling of hollowness... of like... “what do I live for now, if not this?” Maybe I should pick up one of the many instruments I've collected over the years and actually play them without worrying about sounding perfect or what others will think of it. Maybe I just need to make something again. Maybe I should stop letting the life I have now pass me by because of fear. Getting to scream along with Famous Last Words with around 40,000 other people was really really inspiring. Something about hearing everyone yelling, "I am not afraid to keep on living, I am not afraid to walk this world alone!!!!" was so cathartic and I will never forget how I felt in that moment. What a way to end my 20's.
There was also a part of the story performance that struck me so much that I felt the need to draw it despite not drawing anything in such a long time. So I'll leave you with that.
