From the moment camp comedy skeleton Gerard Way was wheeled on stage in a hospital bed this concert became macabre at its most marvelous.

A black parade of hundreds of fans had queued around the block outside the Brighton Centre for more than 24 hours before this gig, a measure of the heights New Jersey five-piece My Chemical Romance have now hit.

But like some kind of bizarre football match involving a cast of tunicwearing undead and 3,000 slam-dancing emo kids, this was a game of two halves.

For the first hour and ten minutes MCR played from their fourth and best-known album, The Black Parade.

It ran through my head that these are the kind of nights that you live for.

But after dashing off stage, for a quick costume and set change, MCR then performed from their second album Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge for another 45 minutes.

This album is unquestionably weaker than its follow-up and here the gig became plodding. The band even welcomed on stage a roadie and got the crowd to sing him Happy Birthday. It just grated.

This was a shame because it was a superb gig overall.

MCR's music was polished and they have some quality tunes. Mama is a fantastic romp through the fly-ridden corpse that is MCR's collective imagination.

The genuinely moving Cancer is a triumph and proof that it doesn't matter whether you label MCR as emo, rock or punk, as they can encapsulate all those styles in one song.

Welcome to the Black Parade got an early airing in the set as the fifth song. It was good but understated.

House of Wolves was the song which brought the house down.

This was a full-value gig, and given that MCR are right now slap-bang in the middle of their world tour you could have forgiven them for being a little down on energy. But that wasn't the case.

Make no bones about it, the rotting, stinking corpses of Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Frank Lero, Ray Toro and Freddie Flintoff lookalike Bob Bryar are all alive and well.