#MCR LA 1

[gerardpilled]

Okay a video I think about A LOT that I haven’t seen people talk about since it’s initial posting is this one from LA1 where Gerard exits the stage and is excitedly chased down by Lindsey

[pinchinschlimbah]

How am I supposed to explain to other people that this is actually a very good Gerard Way cosplay and not just me being unhinged

[centaur-dreaming]

NUMBER ONE?! NUMBER FUCKING O N E?! ON TUMBLR?! T U M B L R ? !

[mikeywayarchive]

frankieromustdie: he’s a consummate rams/kings/dodger fan (we let that slide), a bigtime hat enthusiast, mychem’s bass player extraordinaire, my personal photographer, all around sweet little dude who’s always down for a mall hang or a shit talk, and one of my oldest & most handsomest friends.

you know him / you love him…

my brudda from anutha, michael romance.

[Aug 1, 2024]

[best-fictional-band-poll]

The winner of this poll will go through to round 2!

[cyarskj1899]

NUMBER ONE?! NUMBER FUCKING O N E?! ON TUMBLR?! T U M B L R ? !

[angstics]

just thought about how my chem has never been this good

[ieropski]

I saw pics of Gerard just now and felt such intense regret abt not buying a GA ticket for my show 😭😭😭😭

[mikeywayarchive]

Interview transcript under the cut:

The darkness that drives Mikey Way

For the first time, MCR’s enigmatic bassist reveals the private agony that drove him to the brink of suicide

Words: Tom Bryant

Photo: Dave Willis

Mikey Way has been wandering around backstage in Las Vegas for a while now. It's a few hours before his band, My Chemical Romance, are due onstage to headline a free show at the House Of Blues. At first he's chatty, proud that MCR have risen from opening these kind of shows a few years ago to now being the main attraction. In part it's due to the astonishing success of "The Black Parade. More than that, it's due to the strange and alluring charisma of this band, a darkness operating beneath the surface. Thinking about this is when Mikey starts to sound nervous.

As he paces around, it's clear there's something he wants to get off his chest. He begins to talk about the making of 'The Black Parade,’ the record that's put him where he is now. He mentions the shadowy forces the band say drove them to the edge of disaster during the recording process, hinting that the band member most troubled during those tense months was him.

While his brother Gerard Way has been open about his battle with drink and drugs, Mikey's struggle has been less publicised. Yet he says, "I was pretty bad, I was two steps away from the Betty Ford Clinic. When Gerard stopped drinking [in 2004], it put me on my road to recovery - it's just that my road took a couple of years. Well, I stopped doing the drugs so much but it was more the drinking that I latched onto. I thought I didn't have a problem because it wasn't making me depressed.

But then, later on in life, I realised I had a real problem."

As he speaks it becomes clear just how difficult life has been for Mikey in the last year. Quietly, as he talks, he reveals how he became paralysed by depression to such an extent that he was close to leaving the band, leaving his friends and, more worryingly, how he even thought of suicide.

WHAT WERE YOU GOING THROUGH DURING THE RECORDING OF 'THE BLACK PARADE'?

"It was a mixture of being 25 and of taking a cocktail of anti-depressants and then drinking on them. I had stopped doing drugs but I was really depressed. There were a lot of traumatic events that had been through that I hadn't properly processed or accepted. Also I moved to Brooklyn just after we had got home from touring 'Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge' [in late 2005] and it was the first time we'd had the chance to be home for any length of time. It was the first chance we'd had to be normal human beings for a while. That was a hard hit to me. It felt weird. I just couldn't get used to being home for two or three months. I just didn't get it."

WAS THAT CONFUSING?

"Yes, everything was supposed to be stable and great - but it wasn't. On top of that I had all these chemical dependencies and I had just turned 25, which depressed me. Life was getting to me."

WAS THERE A LOT OF PRESSURE ON THE BAND THEN TO WRITE A SUCCESSFUL FOLLOW-UP TO THREE CHEERS FOR SWEET REVENGE'?

"Yes - there was the pressure too. People were saying. 'You guys are making your follow-up, you've got to beat the last one'. That was in my head the whole time. Then I started worrying about my own abilities too."

YOUR MUSICAL ABILITIES?

"Yes, that and everything else. Everything - life in general - everything was going round my head."

DO YOU THINK YOU'VE BEATEN IT NOW?

"I don't know if l have truly beaten it. I'm a fuckload better, though. I'm probably at 80 or 90 per cent now. Basically what happened was that I left the Paramour house [the studio in which MCR recorded 'The Black Parade']. I left after I had a mental breakdown. I went through some trauma. I left the house to stay with one of my best friends [the band's lawyer and close friend Stacy Fass]. Getting out of Paramour was the turning point for me. That house had just escalated everything in my head and made everything a million times worse."

WHY WAS IT SO BAD THERE?

"Here's the thing - being in that house was like being in another country. You couldn't get cellphone service and the internet was really bad too so it felt like all my lines of communication were down. I didn't have my driver's licence at the time so l was stranded on the property. It was miles from anywhere. We had these long, vigorous practice schedules where we would wake up at noon and play until midnight. If you mix all that with the fact that I was manic depressive then it was as though someone was pouring gasoline on all my problems and setting fire to them."

THAT'S A VERY HARD WAY TO MAKE AN ALBUM.

"Yeah. And I almost didn't get through it."

WERE YOU CLOSE TO SUICIDE?

"I was really close. I knew that I was going to leave the band or maybe just leave planet Earth altogether. I felt like it was either one or the other. I just thought, 'I can't deal with this."

WHO HELPED YOU THROUGH IT?

"Oh - everyone. My band, my brother, my parents, my fiancée, all my best friends. My friend Stacy saved my life. She got me out of the house, she put me up at her place and kicked me out of bed and made me go to my therapy appointments. She made me get active help."

WERE YOU SEEING A LOT OF THERAPISTS?

"I was seeing four different doctors a week. They were two steps away from putting me into a hospital. I think Gerard wanted to check me into somewhere."

IT WAS THAT SERIOUS?

"Yes, it was really bad but I knew that being checked into somewhere wouldn't help. I was stronger than that."

IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU'RE FEELING BETTER NOW.

"I'm on medication and that helps. My brother and I have a history of depression, it's a genetic thing. People aren't all wired the same. Me and him were born like that. So I take medication. And everything is great for us now. I'm happier than I've been since I was 14. I'm on top of the world, I really am."

Mikey Way’s Private Hell 

Interview with Mikey Way from Kerrang! Issue no 1141, January 13 2007

[current-mcr-news]

beemer138: MCR • Day 1 • Las Vegas Festival Grounds • Las Vegas, NV • Oct 19, 2024

[Oct 20, 2024]

[gerardpilled]

night 1 in LA

[pinchinschlimbah]

Oh btw here’s a proper view of my cheer Gerard cosplay, dress made by me!

[tiredofpity]

I forgot about this, shit. Intro for demo lovers la night 1.

“They had run out of gas. Somewhere on the edge of New Mexico. There was no one left but them. Drive.”

Demolition Lovers intro from MCR LA 1 (10/11/22)

[jackett-slut]

34 days without mcr concert you feel like the world is ending and then you rewatch some concert videos from this tour and suddenly life feels livable again

[mikeywayarchive]

Instagram story by mikeyway

[Oct 1, 2024]

[earlycuntsets]

mcr shows on youtube pt. 2 (2005 - 2007)

-> pt. 1 (2002 - 2005)

-> pt. 3 (2007 - 2011)

-> pt. 4 (2011 - 2023)

10/16/2005 connecticut expo center hartford ct - pablohoney27

10/19/2005 carpa neumatica del hipodromo de las americas mexico city mexico - emopinktears

10/21/2005 umbc fieldhouse catonsville md - XxXHollowChildXxX

11/04/2005 carlington academy brixton london england - jason is lost in japan

11/07/2005 carlington academy newcastle upon tyne england - tilly b

11/10/2005 ambassador theater dublin ireland - the academy is my beautiful romance

11/19/2005 razzmatazz 2 barcelona spain - xversa

11/29/2005 stade unprix montreal ontario canada - Smashingchemicals

11/30/2005 john labatt centre london on canada - prunejjuicebob

12/02/2005 muchmusic studio toronto ca - ATØMIC JĒY

12/04/2005 97x next big thing coachman park clearwater fl - obsessionbrazil

03/17/2006 emos annex austin tx - mason randall

04/29/2006 give it a name festival - earls court london england - angelsandairwaveshva

04/30/2006 give it name festival manchester evening news arena manchester england - huesoflife & xEyelashWishes

05/12/2006 sun god festival ucsd rimac field la jolla ca - hisuikirei

08/22/2006 hammersmith palais london england - the academy is my beautiful romance & GMarks1984 & batwife & juliehf

08/24/2006 meadowbank stadium edinburgh scotland - monroeville84 & emu1515 & darthjeebus666 & ZiCoChAiN

08/27/2006 reading and leeds festival little johns farm reading england - joe brady & gdmec182

08/31/2006 mtv vmas radio city music hall nyc ny -- jusyanotherkilljoy

09/06/2006 mtv2s $2 bill philadelphia pa - koi no yokan

10/05/2006 avalon los angeles - the academy is my beautiful romance

10/09/2006 the album chart show london england - xthankyou4thevenomx

10/11/2006 roundhouse london england - ATØMIC JĒY

10/12/2006 virgin megastore london england - the academy is my beautiful romance

10/13/2006 paradiso grote zaal amsterdam netherlands - skittyblackfire

10/14/2006 e-werk berlin germany - redoftherose

10/23/2006 vintage vinyl fords nj - vintage vinyl records

10/25/2006 axis boston ma - juliehf

10/28/2006 city park new orleans la - ohbabylevenin

11/09/2006 e-werk cologne germany - darthvaderlives

11/13/2006 university of liverpool liverpool england - xEyelashWishesx

11/21/2006 alcatraz milan italy - mychemicalitalia & gainlover

12/01/2006 96x electric christmas the norva norfolk va - the academy is my beautiful romance

12/03/2006 97x ford amphitheater tampa fl - sillybears

12/07/2006 key arena seattle wa - anja

12/08/2006 twisted christmas arco arena san francisco - christine kay

12/14/2006 cobb arena detriot mi - fobgirl08

12/31/2006 the pontiac garage nyc ny - the academy is my beautiful romance

01/19/2007 mount smart stadium auckland new zealand - the academy is my beautiful romance

01/29/2007 festival hall melbourne australia - the academy is my beautiful romance

02/07/2007 big day out adelaide showgrounds adelaide australia - the adademy is my beautiful romance

02/26/2007 wolstein center cleveland ohio - rival heart & awesomelexa & katie & sohos & sensesfail814

03/13/2007 ipayone center san diego ca - slownotstupid & shortygothops & sara513

03/14/2007 selland arena fresno ca - miserylovedme123 & m sims

03/16/2007 lawlor events center reno nv - hellasexyrocker12

03/27/2007 scottish exhibition and conference center glasgow scotland - 슬롯 아우디

04/02/2007 koko london england - ATØMIC JĒY (2) & dametokillfor

04/04/2007 elysee montmartre paris france - redoftherose

04/10/2007 kb hallen copenhagen denmark - 666noft (DANZIG COVER) - C4R17O

04/21/2007 universal orlando grand bash '07 universal studios orlando fl - aneiger & selbstmordflucht

04/25/2007 - nashville municipal auditorium nashville tn - thelaurelbush &

05/09/2007 centre bell montreal qc canada - the academy is my beautiful romance

05/20/2007 virgin festival thunderbird stadium vancouver bc canada - ATØMIC JĒY & the academy is my beautiful romance

06/01/2007 nürburgring, nürburg, germany - mcr shows

06/08/2007 download festival donington castle donington uk - the academy is my beautiful romance

06/17/2007 wembley stadium london england - the academy is my beautiful romance

06/26/2007 razzmatazz barcelona spain - the academy is my beautiful romance

07/01/2007 pier pressure frihamnspiren gothenburg sweden - the academy is my beautiful romance

07/04/2007 volksfestgelände pieschener allee dresden germany - cassnjason

07/25/2007 projekt revolution white river amphitheatre auburn wa - the academy is my beautiful romance

07/27/2007 sleep train amphitheatre wheatland ca - christine kay

07/29/2007 shoreline amphitheatre mountain view ca - the academy is my beautiful romance

07/30/2007 kevin and beans breakfast capitol records studios la ca - the academy is my beautiful romance

-> pt. 1 (2002 - 2005)

-> pt. 3 (2007 - 2011)

-> pt. 4 (2011 - 2023)