The Warped Tour has long been the proving ground for punk bands across America. Once a year, it rumbles into the outskirts of every major (and some minor) American towns—a vast caravan of lorries, trucks, buses, cars and vans that rolls from one car park to another as its cast of bands and crew set up to play. The crew will build seven stages before 11 a.m. each morning, then the gates will open as the vast sprawl of American suburban youth pour in for the annual dose of vicious riffs and snarling attitude.

Run by Kevin Lyman since 1994, it’s a punk-rock institution where bands play in bullet-point half-hour slots. There will be local bands, fast-rising bands, freefalling bands, multi-platinum bands, and who-the-fuck-invited-them bands. But they’ll all largely get the same half-hour slot; they’ll all be victims of the famous egalitarian Warped Tour lottery that means each act gets a randomly selected time to play every day. It’s why megastars may open to ten people at 11 a.m., and why nobodies might ‘headline’ at 9 p.m.

On bare stages, they’ll play in natural light only. With costs pared down and set-up kept to a minimum, there are few stage lights, so each show ends at sundown. Then, once it’s night, the crowds leave and the whole carnival becomes the bands’ domain. Around the phalanx of tour buses and vans, impromptu barbecues are sparked into life, beers are passed around and the idiocy begins. Beer bongs, shots and cocktails are downed, drunk and invented. Singalongs, shout-outs and silliness erupt from all parts. Poker tables are set up in bus-back lounges, computer consoles burn hot with overuse and guitars are strummed as bands mingle and merge. The old war stories come out—tales of the past—and on into the night it goes, the party alive for as long as there are bodies to stoke its fire.

Then, deep in the early hours, the buses nose their way out of the car parks and onto the American highways. Hundreds of them set off with the hissing of airbrakes and the swooshing shut of doors. And once again the great caravan is on the road, ready to roll into the next venue, ready to do the same all over again.

Ever the band’s most visceral live performer: Frank flat on his back at Download Festival, 2007 | Photo by Paul Harries

Every year, there is a break-out band, one act who will be the highlight of the day no matter what time they play, no matter what stage they are placed upon. In 2004, it was My Chemical Romance. They owned the place. Gerard would walk out onstage dressed in an increasingly stinky suit, black and white tie draped around his neck, and then deliver performances of such searing, white heat that people could only stop and stare. Like a demented preacher, he would scream and howl his way through the band’s set, throwing himself into the characters he had created in his songs, his sweatsoaked hair clinging to his face.

Alongside him was Frank Iero, ever the most physical player on My Chemical Romance’s stage. He would spin, head-bang then collapse to the floor, playing while lying on the stage and pedalling his feet furiously. Mikey was at the back, feeling Pelissier’s beat, while Ray was always to one side, keeping things tight and sending jarring riffs out to the crowd.

Anything could happen onstage. It would be nothing for Gerard to walk over to Frank and kiss him full on the mouth before spinning off to the other side of the stage and wailing into the mic. Increasingly, it became part of the act—until they noticed that people were beginning to write sexual fan fiction about them on the internet.

“The whole thing with me and Frank doing stuff onstage together was really just to irritate people,” said Gerard. “And it was funny for a brief period. If you boil down the DNA of My Chemical Romance, the base would be this: what do you want us to do? Because we’re going to do the opposite. But people started getting into it, so we stopped.”

“You’d see these quintessential jock dudes beating each other up to our music,” said Frank, “and you’d think, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if they turned around and saw that they were beating each other up to us two kissing?’”