OTTAWA - Teens aren't the only ones who have issues with anger and existential despair. We all do. It's just that since the dawn of rock and roll, there's been a ton of sexual and social currency in teen angst, and nowhere has young despair been so much fun as with My Chemical Romance.

Oh, to be a teenager again. Almost 4,300 puberty-stricken fans in lurid mascara and black threads flocked to the Corel Centre last night for what looked like a theme park for next-generation Goths. In fact, the audience was so young many parents waited in the foyer.

They wouldn't have to wait long. MCR started playing almost 40 minutes early after Circa Survive, one of two opening bands, didn't show.

So when the black curtain fronting MCR's stage dropped with the thundering machine-gun chords of Thank You For The Venom, even hard-core fans in the mosh pit were caught off-guard.

Then it was up to the fans to keep up as the band tore through its two albums,

I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love and last year's breakthrough Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge in a little over an hour.

MCR's abrupt entrance just seemed to enhance its explosive potential. While it wasn't the loudest metal gig the Corel Centre's seen, it was certainly one of the smartest and, dare I say, even fun shows the arena's seen recently.

Singer Gerard Way strutted and posed as if a possessed priest exorcising anger and acne with a few well-placed f-words. Well, actually, lots. But in the end, all this screaming and venting of teen angst proved to be cathartic fun, as if he were conducting a workshop in anger management.

The irony of songs such as Honey, The Mirror Isn't Big Enough For the Two Of Us, To The End and Helena recall Smashing Pumpkins or The Cure at their cheekiest.

Even his most banal between-song confessions were gems of self-deprecating frustration and anger.

"It's so good to play again after six days off for Thanksgiving," Way admitted. That got a huge cheer. Hey, what do you expect? Kierkegaard?

At heart, the boys from New Jersey proved to be sentimental softies.

The band made a hasty exit after its only encore, I'm Not Okay (I Promise) and a flurry of sparkles.

You don't get sparkles when you're older.