Fandom Snowflake Challenge: Day 7

Day 7
In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.

"The Black Parade Is Dead!- Live in NJ (HD) My Chemical Romance" (Watch on YouTube)

One of my favorite pieces of MCR canon is 1:09:30 into this show at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ. The show takes place in late 2007, at the tail end of their exhausting touring for Black Parade, about a month after LynZ and Gerard got married on the last date of the Projekt Revolution tour. The show itself is an frantic, intimate affair on a tiny stage in a crowded venue. It's clearly hot in there; it looks like the sort of show where condensation from sweaty bodies rises to the ceiling and then drips disgustingly back down as rain. The cameras are close and shaky and constantly zooming in and out. Ray and Frank's backing vocals are wonderfully audible and there are close ups of their fingers on their guitars. It's late in the tour, everyone's haircuts have all grown out of shape. It's messy, raw, visceral.

At 18:45, Gerard talks about how he and Mikey's grandma only ever saw them play once, 5.5 years ago at this same venue. At 30:20, Frank says "Lie to me" instead of "Trust me" in I'm Not Okay. 34:30, Gerard mimes giving blowjobs, seemingly in Frank's direction during You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison. At 57:00, they play Stay/Someone Out There Loves You. At 1:09:56, Ray seems to be wearing a T-shirt with a photo of Pete Wentz's face(...?). It's an excellent show with countless little special moments.

But at 1:09:30, after they've played Helena, everyone walks off stage except Dewees and Gerard, who stay for a piano version of Cancer. And Frank - who slumps down against an amp with his guitar still in his hands, looking wrecked and exhausted and wrung out and beautiful, his lips parted and his sweaty hair in tangles across his face - who just openly watches. It's a heartfelt performance of Cancer, an intimate moment between Gerard and a room of sweaty bodies and Frank at his side. And in my fannish little heart, I can't help but make up stories about what this show could mean to them, who they are to each other in this moment in time, what's happened and happening and about to happen.