Once upon a time, there were three young girls named Francesca, Ellen and Elizabeth who shared, amongst other defining qualities, a deep love of a rock band named My Chemical Romance.

  When this rock band decided to tour after two years absence from the rock and roll scene, the girls jumped at the chance to see them play live at the Hammersmith Apollo, London (well, two of them did. One needed gentle persuasion that if she didn’t see them now, they would have died before they next came to England). After trawling the Internet and various websites looking for tickets that were less than a hundred pounds, they – well, the one doing the Googling, Francesca – found a website called www.getmein.com.

  Francesca phoned her friends and it was decided that they would each pay the extortionate amount of eighty-five pounds to see the band they so admired. The tickets were purchased from the website, but did not appear for several weeks. After many phone calls and stressed-out conversations, it emerged that the tickets resided at the Apollo box office. This meant that the girls would travel to London with only a slim hope that they weren’t being ripped off.

  However, they made the long and perilous journey up the A127, playing Spot the White Person in London to pass the time. For the record, once they got into Hackney, the game was pointless. No one won. When the sat-nav directed them to their destination, the girls were amused to find a rather odd collection of people queuing up. There were girls dressed as pandas, girls with crosses over their eyes, girls obvious with insecurity complexes as they were wearing the whole of Boots’ makeup counter and a bottle of hairspray each. Also a man who was playing the oh-so-popular game How Many People Mistake Me For Gerard Way Then Realise I’m a Poser, and quite a lot of Killjoys.

  After spending time in a slightly odd cafe that prompted the game Make Fun of the Polish and Russians When They Serve/Stare At Us, the girls and their chaperone, Laurence, made their way into a queue for the box office. Where this video was shot:

  Thankfully, the group was allowed inside to collect their tickets eventually. Said tickets were, surprisingly, legitimate. Cue lots of shrieking, hugging, declarations of love for god, etc. Sadly, the people on the door weren’t in such a good mood and threw Elizabeth’s water in the bin.

  Like they are a band are important enough to throw things at.

   Time for this video:

  After more queuing, for both the toilet and the merchandise stand, in which more money was handed over to various already-rich corporations, MCR took to the stage.

  This was when the world exploded.

  Gerard, with red hair and rips in his t-shirt, demanded that every man in the room took off his top and swung it around their head if it was their first My Chem show – thankfully Laurence refrained – during You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison. Frank only looked up from his confusing guitar pedals twice; once when Gerard talked to him and once when two girls took to the stage during Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For the Two Of Us. One wore stripy trousers and the other had a two-foot (no exaggeration) blond mohawk. They were twins.

  Mikey, hair dyed a newly apocalyptic shade of platinum, was glued to his, quote, “Rocket-shaped and shiny” bass and Ray actually didn’t stop playing. At all. Well, maybe when the twins attacked him with a ‘hug’. James Dewees, who played the keyboard, made his insanity public by wearing a jumper onstage and the drummer (who may or may not be a permanent addition to the group) seemed relatively talented. Well, they played songs from Bullets which hadn’t been played in five years – according to Gerard.

  Here are the first twenty-five seconds of Welcome to the Black Parade. There are only twenty-five seconds because it was much more fun to mosh to the music than hold a camera – and no one needs to hear Francesca’s singing for five minutes. Plus, you know, you can’t see anything except strobe lights…

  The show, unlike most other My Chem shows, didn’t end with Helena, but with a new one called The Kids From Yesterday (or something like that). There were the usual hits as well as maybe twelve other songs. Here is a well-recorded version of The Only Hope For Me Is You, where you can get an eyeful of the band’s outfits.

  May it be noted that the nicest thing to hear (other than Mikey’s solo at the end) was Gerard saying, “Here’s to the next ten years of this band.” He frequently said other things too, but Elizabeth felt the need to talk over him and discuss how gay he sounded with Ellen.

  Which was quite gay. Especially when he did the shirt thing. There will be a song about that up here soon.

  Did you get to see them this weekend? Are you seeing them in Europe? Are you American and only going to see them when they tour your country?