Week 184: Dragula treatment

I think I last saw My Chemical Romance back in 2005. Lotta melodrama, in the wake of “Helena”, but more punk than glam, back then. Anyway. Kieron offered up a +1 for the London shows celebrating 20 years of The Black Parade and that sounded like a blast so I took him up on it. And it was a lot of fun. I’d only played the album through once, on the train up to town, but it suits the Dr. Strangelove meets Dragula treatment the band have give it. Flame jets, slapstick comedy, mock revolution, countdown to ‘the big one’… all that stuff. The singer gets killed at the end by a put-upon Pierrot, who then throws open his outfit to reveal a suicide vest before the last pyrotechnics flash off. It’s camp, it’s loud, it gives the music heaps of space to go big, it’s pure spectacle. I reckon me at twenty would have come down very hot or very cold on it. I could imagine little me seeing it and suddenly shifting gears to lean into the theatre-kid I used to be. I could also image that guy huffing…