The beginning of April marks 21 years since the end of the first run of the Taste of Chaos. In honor of my best story reaching drinking age, I present to you:
How A Nothing Musician Like Me Opened for the Used & My Chemical Romance
This is the story I will probably tell until the day I die. And I’ll just say it upfront, this is my “peaked in high school” story. You know the guy who still talks about winning the football championship 20 years later? Yeah… this is my version of that. Because in 2005, something happened that I still brag about and hang my scene credit on:
My small, local band from Toledo, Ohio opened the Taste of Chaos tour headlined by The Used and My Chemical Romance.
Realistically, we had absolutely no business being there. But we were.
Before The Chaos:
Remember this is the earliest days of social media, we still got a lot of information from messages boards. Back then, you would hear about bands trying to get a spot on stage by showing up at the Warped Tour gates and trying to convince the coordinators they were supposed to play. Even going as far an invoking the name of Kevin Lyman, the mastermind behind Warped Tour.
The rumors went like this, bands would literally show up at the gate claiming “Kevin told us we could play” or “We won a contest” and because Warped Tour always had an element of chaos, (tons of bands, constant time changes) sometimes… it worked (allegedly). The Warped Tour eventually embraced the story with the "Kevin Says" stage.
But all that chaos (see what I'm doing here?) eventually turned into something official: Warped Tour started sponsoring a real battle of the bands system, often backed by companies like Ernie Ball. Bands earned a spot on one stop of the Warped Tour and then in 2005, that idea evolved into something new when the Taste of Chaos tour launched.
Now, if you don’t remember the original Taste of Chaos, the lineup was unreal:
Senses Fail
Killswitch Engage
A Static Lullaby
For guys like us, this wasn’t just a concert. This was Woodstock. The Used had been established as a dominant force and MCR was on the rise like a rocket was strapped to their back after the release of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. I couldn’t imagine a better show.
The MySpace Moment That Changed Everything
For the Taste of Chaos, the whole thing was heavily promoted on MySpace. Here’s something younger people might not fully grasp. In 2005, MySpace was brand new. And for the first time ever, bands like ours had direct access to fans. This meant a way to promote ourselves and organize people. When Taste of Chaos launched a MySpace Battle of the Bands, we knew something other bands in our area didn’t. This wasn’t about being the best band. We definitely weren't that. This was about who could mobilize people online.
We weren’t a big band. In Toledo, the scene was dominated by metal bands. It was all nu-metal, rap rock, or guys who still sounded like the 80s hair metal days. There were lots of white dudes with dreads and beer bellied dads with goatees (He said, ironically, as in 2026 he is a beer bellied dad with a goatee).
We were a sloppy little pop-punk/emo band named Reserved. Not exactly kings of the scene. We weren’t even the most famous pop-punk band in Toledo! (What’s up, Amanna 18!) But we were good at promoting ourselves online. While other bands didn’t even know the contest existed, we went all in. We were posting constantly, messaging people, getting our small fan-base to vote daily. And it worked. A few weeks later, the results came in. We won. Reserved. A band nobody really knew and we were opening Taste of Chaos.
We Don’t Belong Here
We showed up at the Toledo Sports Arena… and it felt empty. No crowd yet. Just gear, crew, and the quiet tension as four young dudes who didn’t know what the hell was going on casually walked through the back door. We were finally given a bit of direction and found our stage. Not the stage. That was was for the real musicians, not scrubs. Our stage was a tiny acoustic setup… across the entire arena from the main stage. The visual was stunning. On one side massive production, set up to receive thousands of fans. On our side, a small wooden platform and a PA system. The reality hit very fast. We were completely out of our league. We were not special. Despite feeling like kings to get to this point, we were a tiny blip on the overall presentation. We were something the crew had to “finish” before the real acts could play. Up until that point, it still kind of felt like we’d snuck into something. Like maybe no one had fully realized we were just a small local band that gamed a MySpace contest. But then the other bands start filtering in. Not the headliners, the undercard.
That’s something people forget about Taste of Chaos. It wasn’t just a concert, it was basically a festival. There were tiers to this thing, and the acoustic stage had its own lineup. Bands like:
The Bled
Bleed the Dream
My American Heart
Opiate for the Masses
These weren’t just random local acts. These were touring bands. Bands with records, followings, and experience and you could tell immediately. They didn’t carry themselves like kids who had just won a contest. They carried themselves like they were supposed to be there.
We start hearing them rehearse and that’s when it really sinks in. They sound… different. Not just better (though, yeah, that too). More intentional. They had clearly put thought into what it meant to play an acoustic set. They rearranged songs, worked on dynamics, and understood the space. Y’know, actual musicianship tailored to the format.
Meanwhile, we’re standing there realizing we were about to just get up there and strum our way through the set like it was a pop-punk campfire. In that moment, there’s this quiet, shared realization in the band, no one really says it out loud, but we’re all thinking it. “We are not on this level”. That was made abundantly clear when we were told we had to start playing the moment doors opened.
“What do you mean? No one is even in here yet?”
“Timers ticking, play now or don’t play!”
There’s an image in my mind that my ego will never let me forget. Hundreds, eventually thousands of kids rushed in and had a choice to make. They looked at us and then looked across the arena at the main stage. And I watched as they all ran the other way.
Okay, maybe not all. But the percentages were not in our favor. We ended up with maybe 100–200 people watching us. Which was, honestly, one of the biggest crowds we’d ever played in front of and somehow also one of the smallest. Every time we finished a song there would be some immediate applause from these faithful kids who decided to check out the first music of the day. That cheer was followed by acknowledgement from the other side of the arena. A woop and clap that felt like it was 10 miles away. It was surreal.
Backstage: Trying (and Failing) to Be Cool
When our time was done we started loading out gear out and hanging around backstage. We had a plan and it was simple. Don’t act like fans. We were cool. We were professional. We had to act like we belonged. That lasted about… five minutes.
When we turned the corner backstage and walked through a curtained off section, we saw him. Sitting at a plastic table. Smoking Marlboro lights. Drawing comic book characters. He might as well have been our emo Messiah. Just casually hanging out is Gerard Way.
We told ourselves not to freak out. We immediately sat down next to him anyway. As far as we were concerned we were seated next to a god, but at this point in the day he was just a guy waiting for his job to start. We talked about music, the work that had gone into MCR’s aesthetic, the importance of building a band identity. Looking back, he was probably working on early ideas for The Umbrella Academy.
As if that wasn’t enough, later who do I see walk in but Bert McCracken from The Used. At the time this guy was one of my biggest musical heroes. He seemed just as awkward as we were! A beautiful little hobgoblin of a man, ready to sweat and scream and take over the whole arena. When we parted ways he gave me the “brothers don’t shake hands, brothers hug!” treatment.
I didn’t belong here, but the two biggest names on the line-up were nothing but kind and respectful. (Maybe they thought we were Make-A-Wish kids?)
Sadly, because this was just before the era of 24/7 social media coverage and smart phones, we have very little evidence of our day at the Taste of Chaos. I have one awkard photo of a kid who is in too deep holding an acoustic guitar and realizing this was his moment.
But it was one of the best moments of my life. We left that show inspired to work on our music, our look, our presentation, and the next year of my music career was the closest to rockstar status I would ever come. In many ways, I'm still trading on the lessons I learned in the early spring of 2005 in terms of social media and the music scene.
And now, this moment is old enough to drink and I'm old and still telling stories from the glory days.
Fun Fact: There was another winner of the 2005 MySpace Taste of Chaos Battle of the Bands who got to open the show and play the acoustic stage for one stop of the tour. A little band you might have heard of called @Paramore. As you can see, their music career and mine have followed a similar trajectory.