August 30, 2006 14:04

My Chemical Romance declare Reading set a triumph

Bottling made us better, says Gerard Way

Photo Gallery: My Chemical Romance
Photo: Pa Photos

My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way has declared his band’s set at the Carling Weekend: Reading Festival (August 27) one their best ever.

The band were pelted during their set with bottles from sections of the audience, however the frontman believes My Chemical Romance were able to channel that energy to their advantage.

“I feel that that was one of the best sets I have ever had in my entire life and it’s a set that I’ll always remember,” Way told NME.COM. “When we face some kind of adversity we always, always plough through it and we did it for our fans and I think not only that but we completely won people over.”

The singer added that he believed his band not only coped with the bottling, but managed to change opinions in the crowd, particular in the light of a recent newspaper article that had suggested emo and self-harming were linked.

“Negative energy is just hatred and this band has always taken negative energy and turned it into something positive,” he explained. “That is why I gave that speech about the Daily Mail. That was a very negative article written about the band and the band’s fans and it was completely ignorant, it was unfounded, there was no factual information at all.

“We do not promote self-harm but we encourage kids to find other ways to get out their frustrations… my objective that day was to get across, pretty much to the whole country, that that’s not what we represent. We represent the exact opposite. We also represent all the outsiders out there and I thought there were a lot more outsiders there.”

Although it wasn’t clear why the band came under attack, Way refused to put the blame on Slayer fans, who many suggested were responsible after that band had played earlier.

“It was really just isolated to a few people and I wouldn’t even consider those people as Slayer fans,” he declared. “I wouldn’t even generalise and say that they were Slayer fans, I’ve been a Slayer fan for 13 years and I would never do that to somebody so there was obviously something else. I think people, who’ve been Slayer fans for a while could appreciate all different kinds of music, Slayer are a very intelligent band.”