On September eighth, the Honda Civic tour featuring (Grammy Award winning) My Chemical Romance and headliner Blink-182 swung through Des Moines, Iowa, and featured special guests Neon Trees.
Neon Trees were the first band up, and played a set consisting of six bright, keyboard laden songs. Front man Tyler Glen was hyped up and jumping about like a crazed child who had just drank a liter of coffee with 3 sugars and chased it with a pixie stick. The crowd warmed up to the band quickly, and everyone who was fortunate enough to have purchased a floor ticket was soon jumping and getting rather close to everyone else on the floor of Wells Fargo Arena. Tyler managed to sweet talk to the crowd during a small technical difficulty which stopped the set momentarily. The group finished strong with their hit “Animals”, with Drummer Elaine Bradley joining in on vocal duty, and shining.
Next up was My Chemical Romance, touring off their most recent album: “Danger Days; The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys”, a concept album that tells the story of a group of freedom fighters rebelling against our corporate masters in a dystopian future set in the desert, driving over the speed limit and shooting lasers at bad guys in masks the whole way.
Judging by the apparel of the crowd, I’d say that most of the people there were there primarily for this band. Some were in their own “killjoy” esque costumes, and sporting bandanas, shirts and gloves featuring the album’s trademark spider. The band did not disappoint on any front, singer and cult icon Gerard Way was spot on and putting on a show, guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero were far better than on the album, embellishing several parts of songs with some extra flair. I’ve always thought bassist Mikey Way has always been an under-appreciated part of the band on album, not getting as much volume as his strong bass lines rightly should, but he was loud and clear tonight to my own delight. My only complaint was that their set was only about 10 songs, however, they got the crowd moving harder and faster than any other band of the night, especially with their hit “Teenagers”, from the album “The Black Parade” which won them their Grammy.
The final band of the night was Headliner Blink-182, touring off of their first new album since 2003’s self titled album “Blink 182”. The band reunited in 2009 after several near fatal incidents involving members of the band, including a plane crash which nearly took the life of drummer Travis Barker. The band was met warmly by the crowd, but was never as active as during the previous acts. Blink-182 enjoyed by far the longest set time, and tried to play to the crowd, at several points stopping for some on stage antics and light hearted arguments amongst the members of the pop-punk rockers. During one of their on stage gags, they attempted a sort of Q&A, which ended when one “guy over there in the white T-shirt” questioned them only on whether or not they could play his favorite track by them, known as “The Party Song”. After some on stage debating, the threesome attempted the song, but forgot how it goes at the first chorus, citing the reason that they hadn’t played it together in nearly 12 years. However, this didn’t much seem to bother the crowd, as they still layered on the cheers for the headliners.
All in all, my ticket was definitely worth the fifty-five dollars that I spent on it, though it seemed that the general consensus from banter I overheard(and my own slant) was more had been expected of the headliner, and that My Chemical Romance had stolen the show.
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