Emo sound-gods My Chemical Romance are set to return to Oz in 2010.
The New Jersey lads have announced they will play a blistering one-club show at Sydney’s Luna Park Big Top on Thursday February 25 off the back of their Soundwave festival dates in 2010.
But don’t don your best black mourning gear just yet. The band, whose dark lyrical imagery and megawatt pop-punk riffs have struck a chord with a generation of disenfranchised youth (amounting to platinum sales for their last album ‘The Black Parade’), are going over to the dark side – which for emo-inflected bands means a switch to themes like “strength” and “self-preservation”.
According to lead singer Gerard Way, it’s a move that in part stemmed from reports of black-clad kids getting the bash when the band played at ‘Big Day Out’ in 2007.
“It literally didn’t make any sense to me,” the MCR singer said to the Daily Telegraph. “It all boils down to macho versus emotional at the end of the day. It comes down to guttural, violent tendencies versus talking about your problems.”
“I always felt there was a great deal of black humour with anything we were doing. But I did feel it was misperceived and misinterpreted, and in really strange ways. That’s the thing though, when you put a song out there, it’s no longer yours, it’s somebody else’s, and it’s theirs to interpret however they want.
“But I knew the power the band had was whatever we put out next, so we could dictate what we were saying, we could dictate how it’s perceived to a point.”
Aussie fans will be among the first to hear the new songs from MCR’s hotly anticipated fourth album due in 2010, which Gerard vows will be “very explicitly saying that we’re all not victims”.
Don’t expect to see the lads clad in pastel pink any time soon, but do get ready for MCR to show a new side of their stripped back souls. And we can’t wait! Tickets go on sale Friday November 20 at 9am (AEDT).
Saturday February 20
Soundwave Festival BrisbaneSunday February 21 – Soundwave Festival, Sydney
Thursday February 25 – Luna Park Big Top, Sydney
Friday February 26 – Soundwave Festival, Melbourne – Sold Out
Saturday February 27 – Soundwave Festival, Adelaide
Monday March 1 – Soundwave Festival, Perth