One of the things that has struck me over the past few years is the incredible relationship the new crop of rock bands have with each other and their fans. Call it the Warped Nation. bands meet on the Vans Warped Tour and then as each of their careers take off they bring their new pals out on the road with them giving them a leg up. These bands also also use the Internet to reach out to their fans and that personal connection is reciprocated with a loyalty thought to have been lost long ago.
A case in point is My Chemical Romance. The band songs have touched the very soul of their fans. Kids relate to the isolation that lead singer Gerard Way portrays in his lyrics and confirms in his interviews. The band has been labeled Kings of Emo but that comes from the establishment - writers need to pigeonhole every new group that comes along that they don't feel a personal connection with.
Earlier this fall MCR delivered a masterpiece album, The Black Parade. The record perfectly straddles the worlds of excessive glam rock and stripped down punk rock ethos. Okay, I love this record but that's not the point of the story.
As a part of the album's launch in Canada we arranged for the band to come to Toronto for an in store appearance at HMV and a live performance on MuchMusic. As we put the trip together the band's management insisted that the instore appearance was not to have a curfew. Indeed the band stuck around at the store for four hours making sure that everyone of their fans that showed up had a chance to meet them. But that's not the point of the story either, although it is closer to the point.
The next evening the band appeared on MuchMusic, performing 6 songs and taking questions from the audience and viewers across the country. Everyone agrees that the show was a big success. But that's what happened on screen. Behind the scenes, on the streets outside of MuchMusic some of the kids who came to watch the show were getting hassled.
After the show ended the band stuck around and signed autographs for as many people as they could. As they headed back up to their dressing room though, Frank Iero, one of the guitarists grabbed me by the arm and asked if I had a copy of the limited edition box of The Black Parade. Confused by why he was asking I told him that we had a limited supply in Canada and they had all been sent to retail outlets. That's when he pointed at a girl with tears in her eyes. He said that she had brought her copy of the box down to Much in hopes of getting it signed but someone had ripped it out of her hand and disappeared. He wanted to replace the box for her. When I told him that i didn't have a copy he told his guitar tech to run down the street and buy her a copy at the HMV down the street.
Unfortunately HMV had sold out of the box set but a few weeks later the band sent me an e-mail with the girl's address and asked me to find a box and send it to her which we were able to do. It's that kind of dedication to the fans that bodes well for the long term health of the career of MCR and the other bands of the Warped Nation.
