Love Bites: Teenage Foundations of Decay

When My Chemical Romance announced their reunion in 2019 and subsequent tour in 2022, I hadn’t listened to them in years. But as a teenager I loved MCR. 

I loved the melodrama and theatrics. I loved the unrestrained passion in Gerard Way’s singing. I loved the vulnerable, furious lyrics. Lyrics that are sincere in a way that makes them mockable to those with harder hearts. 

The first time I saw them live was in 2010, and I had the date circled in every calendar in the house. I was a shy teenager – I felt different because I was mixed race and brown. But at that show, it didn’t matter how quiet or shy I was. In that inky black space, Gerard was vocalising everything I had felt. He was screaming it out for me. And I was in amongst it, crushed by the crowd, singing at the top of my lungs. MCR connected me with my strength at a time when I felt I had no voice.

And in 2022, MCR were what I’d been missing. At the Milton Keynes stadium, standing in the shirt I’d bought at that first MCR gig, I had my whole heart in my mouth. It was electric. Tens of thousands of fans had flooded the arena – all of us past our teenage years. I was worried that the magic of a collective, youthful passion might have been lost. But when they opened with their newest song The Foundations of Decay, a growling, resonant, and mournful anthem, it was pure emotion on a magnificent scale. Re-emerging amid a period of intense global loss, MCR returned as explosively powerful and even more poignant than before. It was my first gig after the lockdowns, and in that crowd, there was a sweeping feeling of hope. 

Since then, MCR have shot back into my top-played artists on Spotify. Rediscovering my love for them has reconnected me with an essential part of myself. One that has big messy emotions and wants to shout at the world that whatever life throws at me I am not afraid.