My Chemical Romance Headline Riot Fest Night One

My Chemical Romance brings the highest volume of festival goers Riot Fest has ever seen

Fans ran to the main stage as soon as the gates opened at Riot Fest Day 1. In the 85-degree heat, they waited over nine hours for their favorite band to come out. 40,000 people gathered around the Riot Stage. One by one each member came floating out as fog clouded the stage. Images of city buildings decorated the background of the stage. My Chemical Romance lead singer Gerard Way came out, wearing a large trench coat, head scarf, and sunglasses. Opening with their latest release “Foundations of Decay”, the audience screamed the words back at them as if was an archived one. Throughout the performance, the show stopped at various times to ensure the safety of the audience. They were asked several times to back up to make sure those in the front were not getting squished. That however did not stop them from putting on an energized, ecstatic show. They performed their hit’s such as ‘I’m Not Okay’, ‘Na Na Na’, and ‘Teenagers’. To end the night they played ‘Kids from Yesterday’ with an extended outro, followed up with a stunning solo performance of their song ‘Cancer’. The last lyrics the audience heard, ‘the hardest part of this is leaving you’, before the stage faded to black.

Photos: Sloane Johnson