Available as a print on INPRNT
Although there is a minimal explanation behind this painting, there is a little extra I’d like to add because of everything that led up to me creating it. Although I made this painting mostly because I could, it is, at the end of the day, something to commemorate the story.
The short version is, I and some friends went to see My Chemical Romance on September 21, 2022. (I remember the date because of the Earth, Wind, and Fire song. Funny story-I heard it in Target while shopping for last minute supplies for the trip). I took a few photos during the show—not many so I could enjoy the experience—but the final painting was composed using a few of them as a reference. My phone has amazing zoom, but the further it goes, the harder it is to take a non-blurry photo. As a result, a lot of said references weren’t the best. To fill in the gaps where my personal photos were lacking, I turned to the internet. But the main gesture drawings for each of the band members came from my pictures.
Continue reading if you want the long version of the story. If you want to view the specs and stats, they are at the end.
I and my friends live in Pittsburgh, and at the time of the initial tour announcement, the closest venue for us was going to be Philadelphia. I was ready as soon as they went on sale, but instead of going through Ticketmaster’s site, the link re-routed to the Wells Fargo center’s website…. and the site crashed. So I went back to Ticketmaster, got in line for the next closes one in New Jersey and… sat in line. And the line did not move. Then I saw a second date for NJ appear at the bottom of the screen and I jumped into line as fast as I could.
I grabbed four rear stage tickets, and realized later that the other friend who originally would have gone couldn’t go now. The Philly date would have worked for her, it being on a weekend, but she is a teacher, and doesn’t get many days off, especially right at the beginning of the school year, and the NJ show was on a Wednesday. But, I had the tickets. September was 9 moths away, I had plenty of time to figure that out. Little did I know, I would worry about who was going to take the 4th ticket, and how good the seats were going to be for nearly 2 and a half years.
In 2020, the original plan was to drive to Newark in the morning, stay overnight for the concert, then come home on Thursday. Well, a month and a half after getting the tickets, everything shut down. In June, the tour was announced to be rescheduled for 2021. I had already taken the days off from work though, so I figured I’d keep them and just take a well-deserved long weekend. I don’t remember what I ended up doing instead, but then, I don’t remember much of what I did in 2020 at all.
In 2021, we thought, why not make a long weekend out of it? Let’s go to the beach afterward. When the concert was rescheduled yet again to 2022, we went to the beach anyway. There was a whole thing about rescheduling those days, and then issues in a pizza shop when we got there… it was fun. And we went Dinosaur golfing.
But then, finally in 2022, our one night trip had turned into a whole week-long trip up the East Coast. We started in Ocean City Maryland, where it was Bike Week, I almost blew up the rental house because I am apparently too dumb to work a grill and then we fought off an invasion of ants in the kitchen. We also went Dino golfing again.
Then to Newark for the night of the concert. Thankfully, I had discovered my cousin was looking to see MCR as well, and she ended up taking the fourth ticket, and spending most of the week with us, so it worked out. And it made me feel pretty good when we got to the arena and my friends expressed their excitement about how good the seats were. We were in Section 11, row 17, right on the aisle. It was an awesome night, but for the two years we waited, it was over so fast. I also wanted to enjoy the show, because My Chemical Romance is my favorite group, so I tried not to be on my phone much so that I could. But of course, I took a few pictures and videos of my favorite songs just for myself. And so that I could make this painting in tribute.
But! Our trip wasn’t over yet! We spent a good part of our morning in the iHop across the street from the Prudential center—they were super busy and didn’t have enough help—where we met another MCR fan who had been right in front of the stage the night before. We had a very pleasant conversation before leaving. Then we headed up to Salem, Massachusetts. We stayed in Gloucester, but we got there pretty late. So the next day, we went to the Hammond Castle in the morning, then spent the rest of the day walking around town and learning about the witch trials.
If you read all that, thank you. I wanted to treat this portfolio item more like a blog post because creating this piece really was a labor of love for my friends who went on the trip, and for the band, because they are my favorite and inspire a lot of the work I enjoy doing.
Digital painting – Procreate
12″x17″
Time spent – 151 h