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MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, SECC, Glasgow
15 February 2011

OK, confession time first, I am not the biggest MCR fan in the world. If they are on the radio I will nod and on occasion, sing along, but I haven't spent any time or my hard earned on the MCR cause.

Through a bit of luck and knowledge of the lyrics to 'I'm Not OK', I managed to blag myself tickets for the Glasgow stop on the MCR World Contamination Tour so, with my son in tow, we went to see what all the hype was about, which turned out to be quite a bit actually!

Before we got to the main event we had two supports in the shape of LostAlone and The Blackout. Due to the fantastic, never ending roadworks around Glasgow, I made it in just in time to catch the tail end of LostAlone's set. They appeared to go down well, it helped that the bassist was from Glasgow, vocally they were a bit ropey, may have been an off night. I have seen much worse, worth a second look.

The Blackout however were in another league. I wasn't acquainted with them before tonight but it turned out a lot of the crowd were.

From the word go they hand the crowd in the palm of their collective hands. They exploded on to the stage like they owned it and put in a stunning set.

The two frontmen, Sean Smith and Gavin Butler, didn't stand still throughout and their enthusiasm was highly contagious. Definitely one to check out in the future.

Suitably warmed through, it was time for the main event although by the time MCR finally appeared things had cooled a bit, they took a while, must have had trouble applying the eye liner, lol. Whilst we were waiting, they showed pictures on screens either side of the stage of the band in their latest post apocalyptic guise which had some of the teenage girls in the crowd on the verge of spontaneous combustion!

Finally though they hit the stage and headed straight into 'NaNaNa' which had the crowd bouncing and from there on it was dancing and singing all the way. The on stage banter was kept to a minimum, they just let the music do the talking and with a set including 'I'm Not OK', 'The Black Parade' and 'Teenagers' amongst others, there were no complaints.

Highlight of the night for me though was the first encore which was a haunting version of 'Cancer' with Gerard singing with just the piano, man, the guy can sing!

A great night was had by all and I think I may have to spend a bit more time investigating the My Chemical Romance back catalogue.

MCR - contaminating the world one at a time, nurse, the screens !!
 

Review by David Wilson

Photos by Steve Goudie