Well in the grand scheme of things, it always works out that I miss the opening band thanks to the lovely merchandise lines. I would like to thank the rude people in that line who decided to push their way to the front and jab myself and my boyfriend in the backs with their bony little elbows and bodies. I would also like to send my concerns out to the family to my left who had two of their young children in the line who were fans trying to get some merch for themselves. I apologize for the same rude people behind us for pushing you as well. So we got down to the floor right at the end of The Bled’s set, but all we could hear was noise on the walk down the stairs, so I cannot comment more on the set. Suprisingly we were able to get pretty close to the front of the crowd roughly about 7ft away from the bar and by the end of the night less than 5ft.

The lights went down, the crowd started to cheer, The Black Parade was about to appear…

One of the stage crew rolled out the stretcher, the opening heartbeat of The End began and then a red light began flashing on the stretcher in time with the heartbeat. Gerard started singing and sitting up, slowly getting off the stretcher and with the lines “I’d encourage your smiles, I’ll expect you won’t cry,” he threw off his gown and showed his parade outfit, as well the curtain pulled back and revealed the rest of the Black Parade!

Now for the rest of the show I was just enjoying being there (with my boyfriend first of all) and living in the fact that wow I was watching one of my favourite groups perform, so most of my review will be what little I remember technically. But let me say that all through the night, the guys performed spectacularly, they were just beautiful. Also during some of the performances the drum riser platform was spinning around with the two separate sets for each of the songs.

Dead! had the entire crowd jumping especially during the infamous “la-la-la-la” portion of the song, and ended with Gerard putting his hand together, making a gun and a gun shot right at the end instead of the usual “Dead!” line.

When the crowd heard the first notes of the piano intro for Welcome to The Black Parade, they started cheering. Near the end of the song, the crowd was shot full of black and white confetti (some of which was stuffed into my pocket ) and in the lull between the next song the confetti was still falling in a beautiful shower around us.

At Cancer the entire show was slowed down as Gerard dedicated the song to those affected in any way by cancer. I admit that even I teared up during this song, as I was one of the thousands who this song was dedicated to, and to hear Gerard perform it live for us all.

Sleep was a song I was always curious to see a music video for, and at “Just sleep” nearer to the end they started the strobe light and I could see a bit better the vision for a possible video.

Teenagers was as expected pretty crazy mostly with the energy coming off of the crowd. No one was getting hurt thankfully, and mostly everyone stayed in their spots as we all jumped to the chorus.

Disenchanted is the song that is now known as “the song that Ray Toro screwed up because the guitar was out of tune as far as we could see, and he and Gerard were laughing during the opening”. I figure that I will find a shorter title one day, but until then this will have to do.

Famous Last Words was perfect! From the pyrotechnics to the amazing fact that Gerard was on my side of the stage for my favourite line of the song, it was amazing!

So at the end of that The Black Parade left the stage and quite a few people left thinking that the show was over, when Blood began! Nearly the entire crowd was singing along to the creepy and morbid (according to my mother) hidden track.

After this we began to chant “MCR, MCR, MCR” calling out the band we once knew and they came out to meet us. Gerard back in a leather jacket and Bob in his shorts.

They ‘opened’ with I’m Not Okay (I Promise), and then (I cannot remember the order, but I remember most of the tracks) Thank You For the Venom, Helena, The Ghost of You, and You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison.

Sadly the only reason why this performance did not receive a perfect score was due to the fact that nothing from ‘I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love‘ was played and/or the b-side Heaven Help Us.