Wembly Arena: Contaminated - Gig Recap!

[ladyfoxxx]

This was supposed to be a short, brief gig recap, but apparently I HAVE A LOT OF WORDS. AND A LOT OF LOVE. THAT I NEED TO SHARE WITH YOU ABOUT HOW AWESOME THIS GIG WAS. There is possibly an overuse of CAPS at time. I am sleep deprived and SLAP HAPPY, OKAY?

I have also furnished this post with some photos - the crappy ones are mine, from my gig tweets, the good ones I pilfered from mcr_unofficial.

It's 2:30am and I'm curled up on the couch with bebunny and krisipanics with toast and hot chocolate, having showered off the sweat of many other people. (I know - EW. It was fucking HOT in the pit tonight.)

So anyway - bebunny, krisipanics and I headed out to Wembley Arena around 2pm, got there around 3pm and the queue was already fairly thick. Went and hugged piratesunk and never_coming_bk who had SE entrance tickets and then we joined the queue for the NE entrance. Usual boring queueing shenangians (in this case, a lot of shouting "You better stay on the other side of the street/queue/barrier/train motherfucker. I will KNOCK YOU OUT" and singing Party Poison at each other) ensued until we were joined by xclusiveantonym and eventually dancinbutterfly.



Got into the arena and copped a squat and recommenced waiting. Around this time Ray tweeted about the very exciting goings-on that were happening backstage. DON'T STRAIN YOURSELVES BOYS.





Okay, we'll skip over the boring stuff (like lots of standing around, and me and xclusiveantonym arguing over the pronunciation of Gerard's name - because British people say it "Gerod" and I'm like, dude it's GERARD. It has an "AHHH" in it.) and go straight to the music:

Support Act 1 - Lost Alone - British three piece with emo hair. Good sorta thrashy guitar. Seems like a band Ray might have picked out. They had a song called 'Alicia', so maybe Mikey chose them...

Support Act 2 - The Blackout - Welsh 7 piece (2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 drummer, TWO lead singers. YES TWO.) Caught these guys at Download and they were pretty good - funnily enough at Download they had a guest drummer, so they had 2 drummers & kits that gig and I remember being like "WHAT? These guys have two of EVERYTHING???) They did a FANTASTIC job. It got very hot in the pit very fast because they had the whole crowd worked up and they sounded GREAT. bebunny has made it her goal in life to get fic written about them because the blond lead singer is campy in a way that is quite Gerard-esque and she swears he and one of the guitarists had some chemistry happening. Oh and did I mention how he fellated the microphone? Yeah. I am all for ANY band where the lead singer fellates the microphone.

But yeah, anyway this was supposed to be BRIEF because I am supposed to be SLEEPING now.

So after the Blackout slayed Wembley and left the audience panting and sweating it was time for MCR's road crew (inclusive of the dude who looks like Dr DeathDefying sans wheelchair, who I remember from the Hammersmith/Manchester gigs last time) to prepare for the main event. This apparently involved erecting a giant black curtain in front of the stage, thus:



Which dropped with much DRAMA during the opening number - they played back the whole Dr D speech from "Look Alive Sunshine" with the curtain up, and you could see the boys silhouettes through the curtain then BAM it dropped when NaNa went blasting and THERE WERE OUR BOYS UP THERE. Rocking out and rocking hard.

First things first - THE WAYS WERE WEARING NEW SHIRTS. No more stinky Gerard black armless thing with the yellow paint stain on the front. It probably becaame sentient and retired to play minigolf in its old age. Anyway YES, Gerard was sporting a blue shirt with SLEEVES.







And he was wearing RED EYESHADOW which looked HOT, god it's nice to see him in makeup again! And maybe it's the new shorter haircut but he looks like he may have put a little weight back on since the NaNa video days - which is not a dis - I swear - I think he looks better now, the boy was way too skinny. His face looks more like HIS face, with the cheeks a bit more rounded. Apparently he can only handle one new item of clothing at a time though, so the old pants and boots were still around (NOT THAT I AM COMPLAINING NOOOO. THEY ARE FUCKING HOT), though he's smeared red paint all over them, because he loves to do that.



And Mikey was wearing a super cool blue shirt in the style of the I (HEART) NY, except it was "I (American Widow) UK".



Yes. It was MERCH. Mikey was wearing HIS OWN BAND'S MERCH onstage. OH MIKEYWAY, DID NOONE TELL YOU THAT'S NOT ON? Seriously though, now I MUST have one of those shirts. (Oh and did I mention that I saw MANY of the Mikeyway H&M green zebra stripe shirts in the audience? Well I did. MANY of them.)





Anyway yeah, Frank looked HOT as always of course. He was sporting a cardigan (oh that boy and his cardigans) ONE fingerless skeleton glove and a tight looking necklace with a silver plate. Can I just say right now that I LOVE HIS NEW HAIRCUT SO MUCH. He can't hide under his hair! You can see his face! His GORGEOUS PERFECT FAAAAACE.



I saved Ray for last because he's MY NEW FAVOURITE. He was the only one wearing a jacket - black and leather and underneath a white shirt with the American widow on it - apparently drawn? Yeah, metal fucking god. He was a fucking happy man tonight. He was BEAMING. LIKE THIS:



Yeah so now that I've talked about what they were WEARING like some kind of OMG TWELVE YEAR OLD ON THE INTERNET WITH NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH MY TIME, let's run the setlist:

Na Na Na went fucking CRAZY - the entire audience chanted along with the Dr D speech and then went completely paralytic when the curtain came down. They rolled right into Give 'em Hell, Kid after, continuing - in Gerard's words - to punishfuck us poor audience goers. I don't even think they stopped for Gerard to introduce Planetary (GO!) which was the next number - or maybe he introduced it as the next single - anyway it was totally AWESOME live, AGAIN. This time, instead of everyone going "HOLY SHIT GERARD'S RAPPING WTF?" we were all rapping along. It was FANTASTIC.

After that was Hang 'em High followed by Sing. Holy shit, SING was AMAZING. LIFE CHANGING. HEART CLUTCHING. The entire arena sang along. It was GORGEOUS. And then! THEN! Vampire Money! They did the INTROS! And when it was Mikey's turn he threw up an arm and leaned into Gerard's mic, but not really far enough so you couldn't hear him that well but WHATEVS, it's totally adorable. Ray had SUCH A GOOD TIME with Vampire Money. He looked SO fucking happy. The man was BEAMING. Like pretty much the whole show, but ESPECIALLY this track. AND THEN THEY PLAYED OUR LADY OF SORROWS AND I WILL NEVER EVER GET SICK OF HEARING THAT ONE LIVE.

Then, Mama - complete with all of Gerard's usual diva-esque shenanigans, and The Only Hope For Me Is You which is so so SO good to hear live - at the beginning Gerard turned the mic to the audience for all the answering "Remember me" parts and we needed NO COAXING. Such a good audience, really the entire NIGHT everyone was singing along, it was ACE. Somehow it hits harder live than on the album for me. Party Poison fucking KICKED ASS. Everyone was rocking out to that one, and then, THEN. THEN!!!! They played Summertime - and I kind of figured there was a VERY good chance they would, but I was SO FUCKING HAPPY they did. b_dsaint got her gig call on this one, she really had no choice as far as I'm concerned it's our song, but YES. YES. YESYESYES. MOTHERFUCKING SUMMERTIME. LIVE. AMAZING. I really did feel like my heart was going to explode from joy.

I'm Not Okay followed and dear god you have not lived until you've seen Ray pogo-ing while playing out the end of that song. I swear he was more hyperactive than Frank during it. Also, it was either during INOK or Teenagers when Gerard caught Frank's eye mid-song and like, widened his eyes at him in this like "OMG HOW IS THIS OUR LIVES" kind of expression. It was GORGEOUS.

Famous Last Words next and I will never EVER get over hearing this song live. The way Gerard falls to his knees and just releases his SOUL well he sings it. It UNDOES me. I had krisipanics in front of me and we joined hands and she was pressing her wrists to the sky where her "awake" and "unafraid" tattoos are. It was pretty special. They followed that with the lovely Dewees-heavy version of The Ghost Of You and then it was time to GET FUCKING DESTROYED. Ugh, Destroya is fucking AWESOME. Can I just say that you have not lived until you have heard the entire capacity of Wembley Arena MOANING IN TIME WITH GERARD in the chorus? AMAZING. Especially when Gerard does it ON HIS KNEES. Yeah I'll give you a moment to savour THAT mental image.

Welcome to the Black Parade was next which meant lots of tight hand-holding with bebunny because of the Bob (or rather, sad lack thereof) but still, you can't NOT love the entire audience singing along with the "When I was a young boy... etc etc".

Before Teenagers Gerard took a moment to say how happy he and the band were to be back in the UK, that they LOVE the UK, they love playing London the BEST. AT that point someone from the audience threw something at him, which looked like a UK flag, but actually turned out to be a pretty awesome jacket, that looked like a UK flag with "Danger Days" and the American Widow on the back. Gerard picked it up all like "oh I'll find something to do with this" and put it aside. At which point the entire audience started chanting "PUT IT ON. PUT IT ON." and he had NO CHOICE but to comply:



He wore it for all of teenagers and took it off at the end saying something along the lines of "It's a really nice jacket but it's too fucking hot". He actually talked about how HOT it was a lot that night. Someone was missing their sleeveless shirt I think? PITY IT'S RETIRED NOW. YOUR TURN TO BE PUNISHFUCKED GEEWAY.

The Kids From Yesterday was next and MIKEY WAY FUCKING OWNED IT. He was front and centre the whole song. Looking SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. That is Mikey Way's song and everyone onstage knows it.



Sadly he didn't get to do his long playoff because they merged it prettily into Helena, which went OFF, and then it was the end of the set. They didn't stay offstage long, and when they came back it was just Gerard and James for a tear-jerking version of Cancer which the entire audience sang along to, but to cap off the set... I know you may have already heard but... BUT! THEY FINISHED WITH FUCKING VAMPIRES YOU GUYS? We fucking FREAKED OUT. They have not played that song live in - fuck who KNOWS but JESUSFUCKINGCHRIST it went off SO SO SOOOOO Hard. So much screaming and thrashing both on the stage and in the crowd, it was throat-hurtingly good. I can't THINK of a better song to finish on.

A few other things that happened that I can't remember exactly when:
Gerard talking about the UK festivals - asking the audience who was going to them, who's excited for them and then saying oh-so-mysteriously WE MIGHT SEE YOU THERE. So OMG FESTIVALS \o/ Now there is something to look forward to!
Frank kept giving us the finger. With his skeleton-glove clad hand. And looking very amused by himself when doing it.
James did a LOT of crazy fingerwork - there was one song intro where he basically broke into some kind of jazz breakdown, and there was a very synthy interlude where Gerard did some almost chanting-style vocals which didn't seem to comprise of any actual words.
Gerard didn't actually talk a whole lot, there's rumours that's he's not 100% well, so it's possible he wasn't feeling terribly talkative?
Frank has given us the perfect way to know when the set is really over - if he carries the photo frame of his babies off stage, it's over. BYE BYE BOYS.

We hung around after to band stalk but were sorely disappointed when all we got for our troubles was a view of the tour bus leaving the venue - although they did send an apology out with a staff member citing fatigue and sickness, which is compeltely believeable, the boys are probably still jetlagged to fuck.

All in all a MOST SPECTACULAR night. Better than Hammersmith gig, and I never thought I'd say that - because Hammersmith was amazing - but the guys were having SUCH a good time, they sounded SO good, we as an audience had had more time with the songs to know them and love them and they PLAYED SORROWS AND VAMPIRES YOU GUYS! And and and, I had so many fangirls to cuddle and squeeze and hold hands with and rock out with. krisipanics, bebunny, xclusiveantonym, never_coming_bk and dancinbutterfly - you guys are the BEST concert buddies, I know it wouldn't have been anywhere near as fun without you.

Just, OMG SO FUCKING GOOD. I don't think Nottingham can possibly live up to this. But IT CAN TRY.

&THISBAND;

THEY WERE ON MOTHERFUCKING FIRE.

AND HAVING SUCH A GOOD TIME. Allow me to end on my favourite note of the evening: RAY TORO'S FACE:



SUMS UP THE ENTIRE NIGHT ON SO MANY LEVELS.