ROCKSNOB: Kill Yr. Idols

By Jonathan Valania
For The Inquirer
Somewhere in rock-and-roll’s journey from revolution to rite of passage, this much has become inevitable: One day your kids will turn on you. It’s impossible to say exactly what will set them off – lingering resentments over the great Santa Hoax, the sudden realization that we’re all bound to die, that good guys don’t always wear white, and that most of us won’t live happily ever after. It may seem like a phase to you, but it feels like the end of the world to them.

And then they will turn to a band like My Chemical Romance. Not to worry, they will be in good hands – these MCR boys are handsome, ambitious, hardworking, with road-tested musical chops and glossy coverboy charisma. Their new album, The Black Parade, is the sour symphony du jour of tender-aged iPod malcontents, and Sunday night the band managed to fill the better part of the Liacouras Center despite a major winter storm.

A surprisingly large portion of the crowd looked like Little Miss Sunshines, hoisting devil horns with one hand and a glowing cell phone in the other, freshly bought size XL MCR T-shirts fringing their knees. And they all got plenty of rock spectacle bang in exchange for their baby-sitting bucks: confetti cannons, flamethrowers, and the drummer’s elevated perch rotating 360 degrees during thunderous vulcanian drum fills.

Dressed in matching black bellhop costumes seemingly purchased from a Michael Jackson sheriff’s sale, and sporting Kabuki whiteface, MCR pummeled through The Black Parade’s solipsistic grandiosity from beginning to end, despite the venue’s dubious acoustics and taking a time-out to lead the crowd in singing “Happy Birthday” to a band member’s mom. (The group hails from New Jersey.)

After a brief intermission, the band returned to the stage in their stylish black street clothes and rip-snorted through the remainder of their extant catalog, revealing MCR’s more metallic-leaning beginnings. But by then, the long queue of parents’ cars out front signaled a slow but steady exodus toward the idling fleet of minivans and, eventually, the suburbs – where it’s safe and warm and the kids are all right.