LONDON, Ontario - If you're going to play dead, you better have the right chemistry. With 5,200 young chemistry students up and screaming their approval, lead singer Gerard Way bounced up from a gurney at centre stage and greeted the crowd with The End, the opening track of the band's hit CD, The Black Parade. Its subject is death and the second song last night was Dead, which is the second track.
With Way and his bandmates dressed in black-and-sickly-white band musician outfits with lots of grim trim, the CD's track list became the concert's set list. "London, Ontario -- it's good to be back," Way shouted early on. "We are the Black Parade .
. . we want to see you off the ground.
" Way's little talk acknowledged that the band -- MCR or MyChem to fans -- was playing the CD as its alter egos, the Black Parade. Everybody knew that -- and the fans loved it, especially by the time the parade route took in the anthemic hit Welcome to the Black Parade. The parade route stayed on the CD course all night.
When the band left the stage and was preparing to do its closing set as My Chemical Romance, the CD's hidden track Blood was played. It has a music hall sound and the crowd sang along. Last night's concert was the fourth for MyChem at the downtown London arena, including three shows in 2005.
The fourth gig makes MCR the JLC champs as far as music acts with most performances there so far. Way, guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero and drummer Bob Bryar, were the mainstays on all four gigs. Way's younger brother, bassist Mikey Way, has been away from the band, taking time off after his marriage.
He is being replaced temporarily during the tour with guitar tech Mike Cortez standing in for the younger Way. Standing is the operative term. Cortez may have been instructed to keep still because, unlike the hyperanimated Mikey Way, he hardly moved all night.
Gerard Way is one of his generation's best rock talkers. "You'll never, never solve your problems with violence . .
. there's always someone . .
. in this world that can relate to you," he said during The Black Parade set in introducing Disenchanted, a song the band had played at its headlining gig here late in 2005. Way is also one of rock's best movers and twitchers on stage.
When the songs were from The Black Parade, he used big theatrical gestures to play against the gloomy backdrops projected behind the band. When it was time for the brief My Chemical Romance set of six or seven hits to end the night, he was in tight jeans, a dark jacket -- and just full of fire. The band used a few loud explosions and some pyro during the concert, but the real energy and sonic booms were from Way, the guit-arists and the tireless Bryar.
The Black Parade, on CD and in concert, shows that they can put that energy and fire to such a purpose as exploring death and life -- and the angry love they feel for their world.
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