My Chemical Romance Vector Arena

BY SRIWHANA SPONG

The 6th of December is predictably dark and miserable. It rains and my feet get wet, which is not a good start. But on the corner of K rd and Pitt street Niki gives me three picture discs: Teenagers, Famous Last Words, and I Don’t Love You, and when I see Stevie dressed in a red and black tuxedo jacket I know it’s going to be the only night in the 07 calendar. I then spend a long but rewarding time drying my shoes and inner soles under the hand dryer in the Carlton Hotel/Club/Arms……who can remember? Its name is as innocuous as its décor.

Downtown the merchandise caravan looks like it has been invaded by a thousand teenagers with their mothers’ eftpos card. There is nothing left, but as Justin points out, ‘that logo makes everything look shit’. Which is true. It is pretty desolate outside the arena, but I am beginning to realise that I might be a late twenties minority. Justin buys beer, and gets ID’ed. The guy even checks the back of his drivers license??? I always love entering the Vector Arena, emerging into that warm blackness latent with expectation. Our seats are entry D, door 2, row P, seats 16 and 17. In front of me is a mini black parade of 12 year olds in tour t-shirts. The stand out, and my envy, wears a black and gold marching jacket. Someone I met for the first time earlier that night at Gambia Castle has ended up in the seat next to me. I can only conclude that some strange magic is crackling in the air tonight. We are to the side of the stage, and very close. Through my monocular we can read the set list, and Justin and I pass the time by texting my siblings downstairs that Gerard is whispering the song order in my ear backstage.

The lights get cut, and darkness prepares to crawl onto the stage. When the band finally begins its ascent Gerard waits at the bottom of the stairs, his long white fingers clutching the balustrade, head bent. Waiting. The new king of rock theatrics takes his sweet time before ascending to face a dark landscape full of screaming girls. And then a stream of profanities, flames bursting from the stage with a searing heat, fireworks so loud that every time they explode I jump. For a Guy Fawkes baby this feels like the day I was born.

Mama we all go to hell, but tonight it feels like the doors of heaven have split wide apart. Thousands of outstretched palms appear like daisies opening to the sun, and Gerard Way master of the dark and theatrical, snarls, spits and swears on all. High points are everywhere, the graph flatlines against the roof of heaven. Ray Toro gives a guitar solo, and Justin and I are blinded by a shard of light that explodes from his axe. A moment full of so many clichés, it somehow feels like genius. The night is one big anthem. When I don’t Love You grips the Vector Arena in its bitter embrace, thousands of cameras spontaneously puncture the darkness, and Gerard leads his underage parade to the stars, with the mother of all melodies. Cancer, which is surprisingly good live, envelops the arena in a hush so soft you could almost hear the grim reaper drop his scythe. The Black Parade, ‘the Bohemian Rhapsody of our generation’ (Justin), storms to an end with a fall of blistering auburn fireworks that rain down like tears.

MCR weave an hysterical gothic tale, unafraid in the face of a blinding melody, and as consciously over the top as Lisa Minellis’ false eyelashes in Cabaret. For all their blackness, these orchestraters of lyrical doom, are still good catholic boys, and what they inspire is more ethical hedonism than Rimbaudian tabletop antics. Like true showmen they save the best till last. Famous Last Words is a storming, scornful ode to the end of something you hoped might just last forever.



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