My Chemical Romance, The Blackout.
Capital FM Arena, Nottingham.
19th February 2011, 7pm.
The Blackout bounded onto the stage and kicked straight into ‘ShutTheFuckUppercut’, a song guaranteed to well and truly wake the audience up if they weren’t already in the party spirit. Next up was a new song ‘Ambition Is Critical’ followed by ‘This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things’ both receiving massive sing a longs from fans of The Blackout in the audience. Even though this is only a support slot the Welsh sextet played as well as if it was their own headline show. As the set went on the amount of support for the band grew and grew from MCR fans impressed by the performance. ‘Higher and Higher’, the first single to be taken from the band’s new album ‘Hope’, and ‘Save Our Selves’ had the crowd singing along with the ‘Woo’s’ and ‘Woah’s’ from the respective songs. The band’s impromptu chorus of ‘Whip My Hair’ by Willow Smith went down well and when they finished up on ‘I’m A Riot? You’re A Fucking Riot!’ they were in full control of the crowd, leaving the stage to cheers as they started an ‘MCR’ chant.
The chants of ‘M.C.R’ filled the room as the lights dimmed to signal the band’s arrival. Dr Death Defying’s voice on ‘Look Alive Sunshine’ made sure everyone’s attention was focused firmly on the stage before the curtain fell to reveal My Chemical Romance who went straight into ‘Na Na Na’. With four albums worth of material the band certainly had a set that included the best of every album. Newer songs such as ‘Planetary (GO!)’, ‘SING’ and ‘DESTROYA’ from fourth album ‘Danger Days: The True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys’ were greeted to an amazing reception from the crowd. The most noticeable thing about My Chemical Romance now is the sheer energy they put into their performance which seems to fuel the crowd who are dancing, bouncing, singing and screaming along. Crowd favourites such as ‘I’m Not Okay’, ‘Famous Last Words’ and ‘Welcome to The Black Parade’ are met with mass sing a long’s from the crowd who are word perfect. ‘Our Lady of Sorrows’ and ‘Vampires Will Never Hurt You’ from first album ‘I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love’ are a real treat for long time fans of the New Jersey quartet. The absolute highlight of the show was last song ‘Cancer’ as lead singer Gerard Way stood on the stage on his own singing the entire crowd’s attention was on him as they sung along or just watched in awe. The band returned to the stage to perform one last song, ’Bulletproof Heart’ the upbeat tempo created an amazing atmosphere and with that the band left the stage to screams and cheers from every single person in the arena tonight.
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