They Call Us Crazy: An Ode To Fans
By Cassie Whitt, Staff Writer
My favorite band is my ultimate inspiration in life. There, I said it. [Cue laughter].
I have seen My Chemical Romance live 14 times across two countries and six different states. I have waited in line an excess of 20 hours for one show, own more than 50 articles of clothing with their logo on it, risk fines to promote them despite the fact that they’re a major label band with plenty of promotion as it is, and could rattle off bits of their history as if it were my own.
I’m lucid enough to understand there’s a bit of shock value in my saying that, but does it really warrant the look of disgust you’re wearing?
For me and for an entire interconnected and misunderstood community, going to “extremes” for the music we love is average fan behavior.
Vienna DeFord, 49, from the Washington, D.C. area, is a passionate “street-teamer” for My Chemical Romance. She became interested in the band because of a noteworthy difference she saw in them that ultimately lead to a profound change in her life.
“Seventy-five percent of guys will say they join bands to get laid and to have a good time, and this was a band that did not say that. They definitely believed just the opposite,” DeFord said.
She discovered My Chemical Romance at a time in her life when she needed something. After being diagnosed with thyroid cancer and having lost a sense of self, DeFord found comfort in the band’s message.
“After the cancer hit, I felt that something really needed to change, and My Chemical Romance -- what they had to say was: ‘Just be who you are,’ and that really helped me back to what I felt that I was inside,” she said.
Since the band was able to help her, DeFord was eager to help them in return and became a member of the band's official street team, the MCRmy. Through her dedication to promoting them, she worked her way from the rank of “soldier,” to forum moderator, to eventually working directly with fans as a Warner Brothers field-marketing representative.
She says that the members of My Chemical Romance, unlike many people in bands, seem to understand the value of their fans' support.
“Even though My Chemical Romance are now on a major label with all the doors of opportunity that swing open because of it, they still take time, when time allows, to talk to the fans face-to-face,” DeFord said. Though the band does reward and value its street team, DeFord is sure that “even with no reward, nearly every fan would do whatever they could for My Chemical Romance.”
Gone are the days of the untouchable rockstar god. Now, fans are more likely to see members of bands as peers or members of one larger struggle they face together.
That personal and direct fan-to-band element, though it can cause problems (All Time Low stalker girl, anyone?), can have a positive impact on fans.
Some bands seem more likely than others to have fans that dedicate large parts of their lives to supporting them. They somehow take people from casual listeners to a lifestyle. It could be that the bands and fans want to be a part of something special and bigger than themselves, which is what my own personal concert accomplice, Emily Sammons, thinks set apart the bands for which we are willing to travel around the country and wait in line all day.
“I think you’re supposed to get into music to escape something and to make a difference,” Sammons explains. “It’s about life and death, and it’s something I think a lot of bands don’t get.”
Of the bands she listens to, her favorite being Taking Back Sunday, Sammons says, “I feel they’re doing it for the reason we love music; like, they’re fans also.”
Meghan Tierney, 29, of New York City estimates she has been to 200 shows within the past four to five years. She recalls vivid details of concerts almost as if she had been boarding the trains, planes and buses she took to get to them the day before. She speaks fondly of times she has waited in line for 24 hours in the rain and has slept atop cardboard on the streets of New York, and of the times she has spent talking to the members of bands after shows as if they were old friends.
Tierney, who spent time following the tours of Green Day, The Killers and Taking Back Sunday last year, agrees the members of TBS have a special way with fans.
“I think that TBS, specifically, make it very personal. They start to recognize you after a couple shows, and they smile at you,” she said. She recalled a specific time when TBS lead singer Adam Lazzara spoke directly to her on-stage, pointing out that he knew Tierney had already heard the story he was telling.
“After the show, he was like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ and I was like, ‘No, really, dude, you tell the same story differently every time. It’s fine,'" Tierney said. "So the next night, in the same city, he had a brand new story I had never heard before. He came right over to the edge of the stage, crouched down and started telling it to me."
Sammons, who has also seen the band Taking Back Sunday several times over the years, feels the same sort of appreciation from them and from bands like them.
“There’s such a connection between the band and the fans," Sammons said. "I feel like the band knows each and every person who’s there, why we’re there, and how much money and time and tears we put into it. When you’re there, it’s just like going to a completely different world. There’s no school, work -- nothing. It’s just like you’re only hearing that music and being there with the people, and the people just turn into one.”
Heather McDaid, 18, of Scotland, who traveled to Los Angeles the past summer just to see one of My Chemical Romance’s two hiatus-ending private performances, believes that the relationships a person builds with other fans in the show-going and line-waiting process is very meaningful.“I just think being immersed in a fan base or in some group regarding music is a refreshing experience, and I wish more people could understand. Personally, it has brought me great experiences, great times and best friends,” McDaid said.
“I know a lot of people who have never experienced this and don't understand and really, all I can say is if you love a band, meet people in the fan base. You can love a band to the end of the Earth, but meeting others who view them just like you do is incredible.”
DeFord and Tierney also understand the meaning of the inter-fan bond. DeFord describes the My Chemical Romance fans she has met as being “like a family,” and Tierney sees the people she meets in her travels as something that makes them just that much more special.
Of course, all of these things are nice, but you’re probably still frowning, wondering why the hell a person would see a band more than once, let alone travel the country following a tour and waiting around outside all day in whatever weather, unable to predict when or if you’ll be able to use the bathroom or even eat. Why do that when you can show up 10 minutes before doors, jump the line and get the very same spot on the barricade?“If you aren’t suffering to get in there, I don’t know what the point is,” said Sammons, who admits that friends often don’t understand and won’t go to shows with her if she plans to wait in line all day.
“It’s obviously worth it, or else we would have done it only once," Sammons said. "We do it over and over, and we plan to do it again, and I don’t think it’s anything we’re going to grow out of. It’s such a build up all day when you’re sitting there and watching people on the sidewalk and watching the line get longer, and you get so nervous. It’s like the nerves don’t go away all day. Then, when you finally get in there, you feel really good because you did put an effort forth to be where you are."
Tierney loves every sleep-deprived second of her touring experiences and loves that music has taken her to places she never thought she would travel. She sums up what makes shows so special to her by describing a specific moment during Taking Back Sunday’s live performance of “Cute Without the ‘E’ (Cut from the Team).”
“There’s this moment, where there’s this line at the end that everybody sings together, and the look on the band’s face -- they just grin," Tierney explains. "There was this one time in Cincinnati that we sang so loud that Adam just fell over. We knocked him over with singing! He just gets this grin on his face and the band looks so happy and everyone’s singing together, and it’s just the most heart-bursting moment, and I think that moment in that song really sums up why I do it. Because I love the music, but you can’t get that listening to the album on your iPod.”
We don’t do this for bragging rights, and it diminishes any form of “scene cred” we could have had if we cared at all to have any. Shows are more than social gatherings or just something to do. It’s more about being infinitely proud of and supporting something in which we believe so strongly that we’re desperate to show what it means to us.
To everyone who has found a home in, has been inspired by or has felt a part something through it, music is more than just notes: it’s worthy of being a lifestyle.
