Happy Birthday, Freddie Mercury!

Freddie Mercury would have celebrated his 65th birthday today. Music artists posted memories and birthday wishes to the late singer on YouTube.

"(Queen's) probably the most influential band to My Chemical Romance," Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance said. "Freddie Mercury (is) probably the most important front man to me growing up as a little boy."

"Happy Birthday, Freddie. The world is your voice and we can only hope to achieve half of what you achieved--all of us artists--because you really were an inspiration," said Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins.

Katy Perry even sang an off-key version of "Happy Birthday" to Mercury. Oh well, I guess she tried.

Mercury died in 1991 from AIDS. Who knows what the music industry would be like now if he was still alive?

Check out The Mercury Phoenix Trust to donate in the fight against AIDS. 

My Chemical Romance Fires Drummer for Stealing

My Chemical Romance recently fired drummer Michael Pedicone after he was allegedly caught stealing from the band.

"Some s--t happened last night and before the blogosphere gets all crazy with false statements and ridiculous opinions we want the true story to come from us... But please listen close because this is the only time we are ever going to talk about this," the band stated on their official website. "The relationship between My Chemical Romance and Michael Pedicone is over. He was caught red handed stealing from the band and confessed to police after our show last night in Auburn, Washington. We are heartbroken and sick to our stomachs over this entire situation. The band has no intention of pressing charges or taking this matter any further than we have to.

Michael Pedicone

"We just want him out of our lives. The people who play in this band are a family, and family should not take advantage of each other like he did," the band continues. "We are currently moving forward, and hope to have a new drummer in place for our show in Salt Lake City, Utah. The show must go on."

Jarrod Alexander (The Suicide File, A Static Lullaby) replaced Pedicone for the remainder of My Chemical Romance's tour with Blink-182. It is unknown if he will remain the band's drummer after the tour.

"What happened is more complicated than it sounds but I did make a mistake. It was never my intention to hurt this band or all of you," Michael Pedicone tweeted. "It was an error in judgement based on a whole other situation that's way deeper but this does not define me."

My Chemical Romance fans replied with mixed emotions.

"How could you do this? You hurt all of the Killjoys and My Chemical Romance. There's consequences to every action," a fan @Goddamnkilljoy tweeted.

"Good luck in the future. You have lots of talent. #SoLongAndGoodnight," another fan @GetUpAndSass tweeted.

My Chemical Romance have had repeated bad luck with drummers. Pedicone joined the band last year when Bob Bryar quit after replacing Matt Pelissier in 2004. Maybe the fourth time's the charm?

Concert Review: Honda Civic Tour

Gerard Way

The Honda Civic tour made a stop at the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater for the first of two shows on Saturday night, which included rock bands My Chemical Romance and Blink-182. 

"I'm looking at a lot of f**king people tonight and I don't think rock is dead," singer Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance told fans.

He was most definitely right. My Chemical Romance's set actually made me forget for an hour that the Jones Beach Theater foolishly doesn't sell beer.

The band's set started with their hit "Na Na Na," and later included other hits, "Sing," "Helena" and "I'm Not Okay." Enormous beach balls were thrown into the crowd during the hype song "Planetary (GO!)" from the band's current album, Danger Days: The True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys. Way is an extremely talented front man, dramatically kneeling on stage while elongating perfectly-pitched notes and encouraging fans to jump up and out of their seats during upbeat songs.

The stage lights abruptly turned on as the band walked offstage following their performance of "Sing," causing slight boos from the crowd, since it was revealed the band would not be doing an encore. And I don't blame them--I could tell My Chemical Romance had a lot more to give their fans.

As I waited for Blink-182 to come on stage I knew it would pan out in one of two ways: A) They would have evolved into a more mature, serious band or B) They would remain irrelevant in this decade with "your mom" jokes and constantly talking about how they want to get laid. If you chose "B," then you are correct.

Mark Hoppus

The band opened the show with their 2003 hit, "Feeling This," and played most of their biggest hits including "The Rock Show," "What's My Age Again?,"  "All The Small Things" and "Dammit." It would have been somewhat enjoyable if singer/bassist Mark Hoppus and singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge didn't continue their constant banter at each other and meaningless shtick as if it was the year 2000 all over again. At one point Hoppus shouted out "Happy Birthday" to his wife, and later let the crowd know that he will most likely "get lucky" tonight because of it. Considering Hoppus, 39, is now just about as old as most of his fans' fathers, these jokes come off as quite creepy.

 The worst part is that during Blink-182's five-year hiatus, Tom DeLonge apparently never thought to use that time to get singing lessons. At one point, DeLonge noticeably could not hit one note and actually stopped singing in the middle of the song to let the crowd know "this is as low as I can go." This was a performance that would make any sober adult such as myself want to rip their ears off.

Clearly, My Chemical Romance wins by a landslide for the better performance of the night. Maybe the Honda Civic Tour will put more thought into which band should headline next year.