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Trance Kuja

October 27

The Black Parade review

My Chemical Romance is back! New and improved? Well, they áre new alright...
Their previous album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (TCFSR), is pure brilliance. Very fast, aggressive and pretty much insane throughout.
For their next album, The Black Parade, they wanted something new. Let's go through the songs one by one and see if it lived up to my expectations.
 
The End
Ironically, The End is the opening track. And its pretty good! It really sets the tone for the rest of the album. Too bad it gets cut off badly at the end, but the next song makes up for it.
 
Dead!
I love this song! It starts of with a guitar solo, and it gets very catchy from there. The cool thing is, it sounds like a really happy song, until you really listen to the lyrics. A very happy song about death, that's MCR for ya! One of the, if not THE best song of this album.
 
This is How I Disappear
The first of the many slow tracks on this album. It's kind of like Helena from TCFSR.
I don't particularly like it, but when I hear it, I don't mind listening to the entire thing.
 
The Sharpest Lives
Really good! Again very catchy, I really like the chorus. It has a part somewhere near the end,
with a women choir on the background. And I'm a sucker for those things. Really reminded me of one of Good Charlotte's songs from their Chronicles of Live and Death album, which had the exact same thing. This is better though =P
 
Welcome to the Black Parade
What to say what hasn't been said already. Brilliant, that's what it is.
It starts of slow, which takes just a tad too long, but around 2 minutes is goes all out.
MCR at it's best.
 
I Don't Love You
Ah, concert memories. Loved it live, love it on the album. Very slow sort of love song, an MCR's first.
Another guitar solo near the end. Lyrics are a bit cliché, but most love songs are cliché, so meh.

House of Wolves
Yeah! Fast, upbeat, can't sit still when I hear it :P
I love the chorus, too bad the lyrics aren't really good.Another part which I always look forward to, is when Gerard sings
“And I said, ashes to ashes, we all fall down”. You have to hear it, it's awesome!
One of the best songs on the album.
 
Cancer
Again a slow song. I love the lyrics, but it's too short! 2 and a half minutes to be exact.
This sounds a lot like I Don't Love You, but even slower :P
 
Mama
Very errr...unique :P First time I heard it, I wasn't exactly blown away.
Now, it's one of my favorites. The lyrics are insane, and the way Gerard sings this song is godlike!
It reminds me of 'You Know what they do to guys like us in Prison' from TCFSR, in which he also sings like a maniac. Insanity, I love it! XD Too bad it gets kinda draggy at the end, but I can live with that.

Sleep
After the pwnage which is called Mama, this song just falls flat. It doesn't stand out in any way, and in the end it gets quite annoying.
I always skip this one, and it's agáin a slow song. 
 
Teenagers
Fun, the first couple of times. Listen to it too many times and it becomes annoying.
It's way too simple for an MCR song. Dare I say, amateuristic? Come on MCR, I know you can do better than this!

Disenchanted
Slow song, but so much better than the last two. The lyrics aren't all that great, but it's a good song, no doubt. Quite long, almost 5 minutes. Sounds a lot like I Don't Love You, but with a bit more spice :P
 
Famous Last Words
Looooooove! Incredibly good song! Not too slow or too fast. The Lyrics are too good :D
It does a good job of ending the album, on the other hand, it makes you hunger for more XD
But wait! There ís more!
 
Blood (Hidden Track)
This song doesn't start until after a minute and a half. Some might think it's boring, but the lyrics are awesome XD
"I gave you blood, blood, gallons of the stuff,
I gave you all that you can drink and it would never be enough"
A song about blood, how could you not love it? XD

So what did I think of it?
Its a good album. Great, even. One of the best albums I have.
Buuuuuuut, it cóuld have been better.
MCR tried something new, something a bit more mainstream, and it turned out
fine. However, it is not better than TCFSR. I've always said that MCR wasn't
really good with slow songs, and Black Parade has a bit too many of them.
There's also the fact that quite some songs don't really stick out, where
almost all of TCFSR's songs were unique in their own way.
Let's hope they don't go any more mainstream, I don't want them to end up
like Good Charlotte and Green Day.

Thanks for reading ^-^'
October 14

My Chemical Romance concert

I was invited by one of my friends, Ad, to go to My Chemical Romance. For those of you who don’t know them, it’s an emo rock band, and one of my personal favourites at it. We would go with the 3 of us, another friend of mine (Yjeeeuh) would also tag along. Unfortunately, due to some money problems, he couldn’t come with us. But! We found a semi-sort of-kind of replacement for him, along with 2 more! That made 5 of us, Ad, Opa, Renske, Renske’s dad, and me.

Ad, Opa and me took the train to Amsterdam. After about 2 hours we arrived, and made our way to Paradiso, where the concert was being held. When we got there, we couldn’t belive our eyes. All those people standing in line! Now, I went to a concert before (Thrice :D), so I knew there would be a lot of people, but this was just insane! People were on the street because the sidewalks were already full! Ad had to go back to the station to pick up Renske and her dad, so Opa and I sneaked our way into the crowd. That’s when we noticed that the general age of most people here was about 16, and most of them were girls. When the doors opened, the screams hurt my ears :P And of course, everyone had to get in at the same time. Thankfully, we got in without anyone dying, and inside the place was practically empty.I found myself a nice spot on the sideline, next to an enormous pillar. It was a bit higher than the general area, so I would be safe from being thrown into the mosh pit :P Opa, on the other hand, was right in the middle of it xD

First the support act played, but it wasn’t all that great. Skip the Rush was their name, a dutch emo punk band. It was mainly filler so all of the people would be inside when My Chemical Romance was gonna start playing. Somewhere near the end, I could see Ad coming in with Renske and her dad, and they managed to find a place somewhere in the center.

When Skip The Rush was done, everything had to be prepared for MCR. It didn’t take too long thankfully. They raised a huge sort of curtain with My Chemical Romance on it, and after that the band members got on stage. The singer now has white hair instead of black, and I have to say it looks good on him :P The first song they played was from their new album I believe. It was quite cool, but since I didn’t know any on the lyrics (yet ;P), it didn’t have much impact on me.

Somewhere after that, they played Cemetary Drive, my favourite song! And I have to tell you, it was AWESOME. This was what I was waiting for all day! (well, week…or 2 :P) I sang along till my throat hurt, and more :D Felt so good!

After that, another song of their new album. But this one wasn’t new to me. Welcome to the Black Parade it was, already released as a single. I fell in love with it the second I heard it back then, and hearing it live was just as great. It has a part which is just there so the audience can sing along, and of course we did! Sing with me:

  • When I was a young boy,
  • My father took me into the city
  • To see a marching band.
  • He said, "Son when you grow up,
  • would you be the saviour of the broken, the beaten and the damned?"

And right after that, the song breaks loose. And so did the audience. It didn’t take long before the pit got formed, but it wasn’t all that big. Of course, Ad was right in the middle of it. Opa was somewhere in there too, but he’s too short so I didn’t see him :P

After another song of their new album, it was time for another favourite of mine, Thank You for the Venom. And after hearing it live, I have to say it beats Cemetary Drive in awesomeness. I enjoyed it intensely, parts with my eyes closed! It was that good, it really hit me, and I didn’t want it to stop. It has a great solo in the middle, and it was FUCKTASTIC! Again I sang along, really loud, making guitar gestures with my arm/hand :P Ad knows what I’m talking about ;) The best part of the concert, definitely. I noticed a girl in front of me here who had the same MCR sweatband around her arm like I do :D

Another one of the songs was “You know what they do to guys like us in Prison”, Ad’s personal favourite. It was equally cool, cause it’s also one of mý favourites :P On the CD, he sings some parts like he’s insane, which I really appreciate. Live however, he left it out. Too bad, cause it’s the best part of the song. Oh well… I can’t really recall all songs they played afterwards, but I knew something was missing. They couldn’t just leave out I’m Not Okay, could they?........Of course, they couldn’t, they just saved it for last :D And I loved it! The entire audience loved it, no doubt. Everyone sang along, and so did I. Classic song ;)

That being their last song, they left the stage. But you know, when they say it’s their last song, it never really is :P After a lot of ‘We wan’t more’s’, the singer came back on stage. He sang some sort of love song from their new album. It was really good, but not a way to end the evening :P After his, both guitarists and the drummer came back to perform one last song. What could it be? :D

 They saved the best for last, finishing with Helena. I’m not a big fan of this song, but it ís the most listened track on Last.FM, so it has to be quite popular :P Hearing it live was great, of course, and a nice way to end it.

After the concert I headed to the merchandise booth. It was insane I tell you!! It was like the entire audience was there to get shirts and what not! I guess it kind of felt like a mosh pit without the music XD  I struggled my way through the masses, to come back out with an armband, a t-shirt and a longsleeve. Thank God I’m tall and thin, otherwise I might not have survived in there XD

When I got back, Ad and the guys sat on the floor, talking to a few guys. One of them noticed my Sonata Arctica shirt, and we had a nice talk about how awesome they are >D It’s just great to meet people who have the same music taste like you, and guess what, there’s about a fifteen hundred people there with the same music taste like me :D He’d seen Sonata live, said they were even better than on their CD’s. Is it really possible? :P Hopefully I’ll find out someday!

Once outside, we had to wait for another 2 hours before my parents came to pick us up. So once again we started talking to some people. 2 guys and 2 girls, real cool folks. The girl also noticed Ad’s Final Fantasy necklace :D How cool is that! She looked a bit too young for me, but I think we could get along really well :P She was Asian as well! Same music taste, same game taste, and Asian? She’d be perfect for me if she didn’t look like she was 13 XD Also, one of those guys had his hair like, well, most Jrockers :P I was so jealous! XD I’m gonna steal his hair one day!

After our talk, we had fun with a homeless person! He had an instrument (mondharmonica, what’s it called in English?) , and it was só funny! He kept on coming back, playing for us. One of the guys asked if he could play metal on it XD. Upon hearing the word metal, Ad started headbanging like a madman to the music of the mondharmonica! Once again, so funny XD

We parted, and Ad, Opa en me went to Central station (whilst avoiding homeless people and some drunk guy) where my parents were waiting or us. I’ll spare you the details of the 2 and a half hour long trip, this entry is already long enough. So yeah, I had fun, it was awesome, and I’m looking forward to our next concert! Thanks MCR for a great concert, and Ad for inviting me. And a thank you to all of the people who went there, I felt right at home :P

Thanks for reading, leave a comment ^^

 

First Post

Well looky here, my own MSN space. Where'd that come from?
The basic idea behind it is wanting a weblog so I won't have to tell the same stories all the time :P
Layout 'n all will probably change, but first I just wanna write about what I did yesterday :D
 
And yes, it's all english. Maybe some mistakes here and there, it's not my first language ;) 
 
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