I will admit that I immediately fell for Hatter Madigan (I’m a sucker for Carroll’s “Mad” Hatter and any incarnation of his character… this includes Tom Petty’s portrayal in the music video for “Don’t Come Around Here No More”), and for the love and affection shown between Princess Alyss and Dodge Anders, the son of the Captain of the Palace Guard, Sir Justice Anders.

I was not impressed at all with Sheryl’s performance. First off she could barely walk in the high heels she was wearing, which made her look like she was walking around drugged or drunk. The sound was atrocious. They blasted it trying to fill the not-even-close-to-a-sellout-crowd-in-the-arena. It was just horrible! Add to that, Sheryl tried within the first two songs to get crowd interaction. Wrong! You need to build up your bond with the crowd before you can ask things of them. Plus when you have a less than stellar opening band you have to work extra hard to earn the $60-$100 ticket price.

Now onto the review. Merchandise was awesome! I picked up a white Ghosts t-shirt (which I love and have worn out already). I sadly missed Crystal Castles due to the merch lines, but I could hear them. I seem to have a knack for that, but I love my merch and it will always win out over anything! Well except for the headliners, but that’s why I pay the big bucks to see them.

The show was just wow. I did not take photos as I had no camera, but thanks to NIN art director and all around awesome guy, Rob Sheridan, I can post three photos taken at the show.

The light show was just amazing! Truly an interactive set. I honestly got my money’s worth out of this show, and the next time NIN come near my city I will be buying up tickets to bring others and let them see the utter beauty and imagination offered on stage. I wanted to jump on stage and play with the set. The hanging lights, the mesh screens of light, the drumbeat boxes for “Echoplex”, etc. It was an amazing show and I knew every track except for maybe two and that is pretty good considering I’m not really a big fan of anything prior to “With Teeth”.

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.

By the end of Ok Go’s set I was nearly in fits of laughter just from their tribute song for the road crew that had been working with them and the other bands for this entire tour with the dance to their track A Million Ways. Absolutely beautiful the way that they all moved so fluidly to express their appreciation to the crew, so much that they even were able to salute and bow to the crew. The rest of the set was excellent, but sadly I do not know their album well enough to tell you all the songs they performed, but these are the ones that I remembered:

Do What You Want
Oh Lately It’s So Quiet
Invincible
Here it Goes Again
A Good Idea At The Time
The House Wins
Television, Television

Snow Patrol came on and started with a long intro of Spitting Games, followed by It’s Beginning to Get To Me. The lead singer, Gary Lightbody then commented on how Edmonton was the best stop on the tour so far and how Ok Go was a “tough act to follow because [they] can’t dance at all”. Then they went into Chocolate and Headlights on Dark Roads which was dedicated to we Canadians who unknowingly brave the cold and crazy weather that was currently around us (and as Gary said the only way he would go out in this would be covered in goose fat), and How to Be Dead.

During their U.S. hit single, Chasing Cars I was frantically dialing my coworker to share in the experience since this was her favourite song. Next were Shut Your Eyes, and Set the Fire to The Third Bar where Nikki Monninger from Silversun Pickups joined Gary on stage to perform the duet with him in place of Martha Wainwright who was featured on the album. Well unbeknownst to the band and the crowd, halfway through the song flame handlers came out. They rubbed the flames against their bare inner arms, and then proceeded to spit the fire and finally eating the flame to snuff it out.

Next they played my favourite track, Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking where Gary made everyone restart as he was trying to play in tune tonight for once. The rest of the set went as follows: Make This Go On Forever (if any song could make me almost want to join a choir it would be this one), Ways & Means, Run (my cousin Tessa’s favourite track), and closing out with You’re All I Have.

The crowd was wildly clapping at the end of the show, we were on our feet calling for more and after a few minutes of steady cheering, Snow Patrol came back out for an encore with The Finish Line, Open Your Eyes, and during Hands Open they were joined by all the members of Ok Go and Silversun Pickups. Once more a standing ovation from the crowd of 4500+ and they stood all together and gave the last stop on their tour a bow and applauded to us.

Spitting Games
It’s Beginning to Get To Me
Chocolate
Headlights on Dark Roads
How To Be Dead
Chasing Cars
Shut Your Eyes
Set the Fire to The Third Bar
Somewhere a Clock is Ticking
Make This Go On Forever
Ways & Means
Run
You’re All I Have

Encore
The Finish Line
Open Your Eyes
Hands Open

I cannot for the life of me remember the set list, but I can tell you what tracks I remember:

This is How It Goes
Try Honesty
River Below
The Ex
Prisoners of Today
Nothing to Lose
Sympathy
Devil in a Midnight Mass
Red Flag
Worker Bees
Fallen Leaves
Where is the Line
Living in the Shadows
Line & Sinker
Standing in the Rain
This Suffering

01. The End
When I first heard this track it was the live version from the Hammersmith Palais show in London on August 22, 2006. I felt the dark beats run through me and lift my heart and soul up to join The Black Parade. I felt such power and force behind the lyrics and sounds, that made me want to get up and run out into the world and tell them to look out because I was born anew.

With the opening lyrics, “Now come one, Come all, To this tragic affair, Wipe off that make up, What’s in is despair,” you already prep yourself for a ride through The Patient’s bout with death, ‘Fear’, ‘Regret’ and ‘Mother War’.

02. Dead!
Such a poppy-punk rock track that even with sad and depressing lines of “Found a complication, In your heart, so long, Cause now you’ve got, Maybe just two weeks to live“, you can help but dance and sing along to the chorus of “La la la la la”. You can see fans around the world claiming they are ‘Dead!’ and thinking about this song and not about the atypical idea of death in emo and feelings of angst that are thought to go hand in hand with one another. (Don’t even get me started on emo)

03. This Is How I Disappear
“I’m just a ghost, So I can’t hurt you anymore,” I always hate saying that a certain part of a song dragged me in, for this track it was during these lines “So you can, Well now so you can” when you hear The Patient’s voice ’spiraling down’ with the guitars. In my mind I can just imagine his voice falling down a cyclone of guitar chords, or singing in front of an amp and the music exploding from within as a mass of colour and ribbons and strings and confetti, etc.

04. The Sharpest Lives
“Juliet loves the beat and the lust it commands, Drop the dagger and lather the blood on your hands Romeo.” The creepy whispering and harmonies are beautifully placed. It gives the illusion of multiple Patients or multiple versions/aspects of himself, all trying to get out but nearly coming together to form a cohesive statement. “Give me a shot to remember”

05. Welcome to The Black Parade
When I first heard this track it was the official release from their myspace profile and it had the marching band drums leading up to the song. The album release lacked this, but still did very well for me. While being the first single from the album and the introduction to their new persona, the radio stations still have not overplayed this track to make me hate it yet and to them I am very thankful because the day I become sick of hearing any song from this album it will indeed be a very sad day. “Because the world will never take my (heart), Go and try; you’ll never break me”

06. I Don’t Love You
This song is all about being in a relationship and one day just not loving them the same as you used to. I’ve been through this on both sides actually. It is a hard situation to get through, but you sit there for a little while and then move on and be true to yourself. It is such a sad song really though and gets really touching when at the end Gerard softly sings the words, “When you go, Would you have the guts to say, “I don’t love you, Like I loved you, Yesterday”“. You can feel some sorrow and bitterness all wrapped into one little marching band uniform.

07. House of Wolves
During pre-release performances this song was labelled as “Inferno” and it is fitting considering the flurry of guitars and drums you hear during the track, so it is expected that Ray, Frank, Mikey and Bob all have serious guitar/drum burn after playing. I personally love the line, “Tell me I’m a bad man, Kick me like a stray.” it just sounds quite odd

08. Cancer
I heard this song live before (thanks to the internet), but the one time that sealed it for me was the October 21st Saturday Night Live performance. This is such a lovely and sad song that makes you honestly think about the hardships of those who are plagued by terminal diseases. They really just want to set their lives in order before they go and they hope that everything will be okay, but they will still miss those that they care about and love and it will be the hardest thing for them to let go finally and say good-bye. To put it simply how touching this song is that both my father and I cried when we heard it for the first time, since we had lost some close family members over the years to various illnesses. It is especially important to me for shortly after the release of this album my father was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, and I will one day sing it or atleast have someone perform it at his funeral for him and his memory. My favourite part and also the hardest part to keep a straight face on for is the soft and heavenly harmonies during the following lines, “That if you say goodbye today, I’d ask you to be true. ‘Cause the hardest part of this, Is leaving you.“.

09. Mama
‘Mama’ starts out with a gypsy-esque sound with the short guitar strumming, I can just imagine the soldiers in the trenches sitting around the fire and in a moment of insanity they all break out and begin writing letters to their loved ones out loud describing the horrors they have seen and have yet to see, all the while still being ostracized (by some) and criticized by their loved ones for their past actions. I love the addition of Liza Minnelli even if just for a few short lines, I can imagine her perfectly fitting into the concept and theme of ‘The Black Parade’. In the background of the bridge you can hear the planes falling and crashing as the guitars play and then after Minnelli’s lines the entire brigade comes together to sing together as though some choir doomed to die and haunt the ground they lay upon. “We all carry on, When our brothers in arms are gone. So raise your glass high for tomorrow we die, and return from the ashes you call.”

10. Sleep
The beginning of this track is actual recording of Gerard from his stay in the Paramour Mansion and the nightmares and terrors he would have while trying to sleep. Mikey is quoted as saying that during the night he would go from his room, through the adjoining bathroom that he and Gerard shared and into Gerard’s room to sleep on his floor. Mikey was in the infamous ‘blue room’, “Take a manic-depressive kid and throw him in a haunted house with no cell-phone service, no TV, no heat and put him in a room with one glowing blue light. I got there immediately and was like, I know I’m not going to make it through this, I just wonder how it’s going to end.”So shut your eyes, kiss me goodbye, And sleep.”

11. Teenagers
“But if you’re troubled and hurt, What you got under your shirt, Will make them pay for the things that they did.” Gerard has stated that this song really does not fit in the concept of The Black Parade, but he felt that it was necessary to be there to share this message with the public. He mentions one day on the subway with a large crowd of teenagers near him and being honestly scared of them, of what they might do to him. It really says that it is not the teenagers’ fault but rather the society they have had to grow up in for their bad and rude behaviour. Drugs are easier to access than when I was a teenager and I am seriously not that old! Guns and other weapons are more accessible as well, there is a real problem with the youth of today and society as a whole is to blame. Society needs to make teens and youth understand that this is not how the world should be, we should all be able to be ourselves and not have to worry about persecution, either by a dirty look, action or by a knife or gun. (Now I am done my ranting and you can all run off) But underneath it all the track still says ‘Hey! your heart will lead you right, so always believe in yourself.’

12. Disenchanted
A story about friends who used to have fun and live their lives, but one day one friend finds out he is going to die and stops living, so he becomes “a sad song, with nothing to say, About a life long wait for a hospital stay“.

13. Famous Last Words
I hate to say this but it is one line that caused my love for this song. It is not the words in the line, but rather the way that Gerard sings them, I honestly feel whatever is inside of me trying to break free, pushing against my body, against my bones, my skin. “Can you see? My eyes are shining bright” This is such a beautiful ending track to this album, a lovely anthem of the dead, which makes you wonder if The Patient really dies or if he carries on.

14. Blood [Hidden Track]
“So give them blood, blood, blood. Grab a glass because there’s going to be a flood!” A cute (I use this term to describe even the most horrific and possibly gaudy things I see in my life, so be forewarned) and very funny hidden track. After the first listen I was able to learn the words and now at any time I can be heard singing this track to my family and watching their reactions to see whether I am still crazy or just acting it for the day.