a shrine to MCR

i'm a big fan of music. shout out to music

i inherited a lot of my music taste from my cousin when i inherited his MP3 player (he's not dead, he just got a new one). he was a teenager during the height of the Emo Trinity, so my first introduction to music other than the stuff my parents listened to was My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy. i distinctly remember being 13 and standing with my dad in line at the grocery store while Mama blasted in my ears and thinking "...wow.... Dad doesn't even know i'm listening to this right now... i'm so #edgy" (i was not edgy. i was a people-pleasing perfectionist.)

however, my cousin only had a sparse handful of their songs on his MP3 player, and somewhere between a lack of internet and a lack of motivation, i just never got around to seeking out more of their music.

March 2013.

i was on Tumblr the night My Chem broke up. i was home alone surfing Tumblr on my mum's laptop when all of a sudden my dash was flooded with people mourning their breakup and the fact that they would never get to see them live, and i swore to myself then and there that i would never get into them, because i would never be able to handle loving a band i would never get to see live. ...since this page exists, it's obvious that i failed. :')

see, the thing is... my high school friend group was a gaggle of misfits. there were 9 of us, all with wildly different personalities and interests -- pretty much the only thing we had in common was that we had the same friends in common, and since we had no one else to hang out with, we hung out with each other and did our best to make it work. the only common interest shared between many of us was My Chemical Romance, and after about a year of them playing MCR music at every gathering, i had to admit that i kind of liked them. shortly afterwards i bought a copy of The Black Parade for eight dollars from the local Warehouse during a stopover Mum & i made as we embarked on a roadtrip. i insisted we play it in the car, and so we sat there listening to it together while stuck in traffic, and when the album finished, Mum turned to me and went "that was... interesting. let's not play that again." but for me? i was hooked.

in March of 2023 -- ten whole years, almost to the day since they broke up -- i was lucky enough to see them live in concert! and it was one of the best nights of my whole entire life!!!!!! i wore so much black eyeliner that i was still cleaning it off two days later. Gerard Way bit the top off of a plastic water bottle and it was the hottest thing i've ever seen. i went with a huge group of friends from uni, including my best friend of 20 years, and during the bridge of Famous Last Words we all formed a circle and hugged each other as we scream-sang the lyrics together, and as much as the band was fantastic, that moment of true connection with my pals was my favourite part of the whole entire night :''')

so, yeah. shoutout to MCR. truly one of the bands ever,, :''')

favourite songs:

• Famous Last Words
• Thank You For the Venom
• Mama
• Boy Division
• Disenchanted
• The Sharpest Lives
• DESTROYA
• The Light Behind Your Eyes