My Chemical Romance – Long Live the Black Parade

I may have started listening to them when I was 14, but it took 20 years before I got to see them in concert, and thankfully I now have zero regrets. My Chemical Romance is alive and going strong as they kick off their Long Live The Black Parade Tour in Seattle at T-Mobile Park. See mom? It wasn’t just a phase. From fans young and old, the audience was filled with black fishnets and Gerard Way’s classic black stripe makeup to name a very small portion of the looks filling this stadium show.

While there have been a wide range of acts opening their shows like IDLES, 100 Gecs, Death Cab for Cutie, and Devo, their tour kicked off being opened by Violent Femmes. Ignoring the outdoor merch booth posted across from the stadium with a line weaving back and forth through the parking lot, as I entered the stadium there was already another line wrapped completely around the stadium on the main level for more merch booths. After searching for some continually delicious and required garlic fries, I never did figure out where the line started and the other one stopped.

Violent Femmes may have started a little late, but it was made up for by their beautifully large funky bass held by their bassist Brian Ritchie. Hard to tell if it’s been converted from his old favorite, but according to his Reddit AMA from 7 years ago, he’s been using the same Ernie Ball Earthwood acoustic bass guitar for 45 years at this point. As their hugely popular song “Blister In The Sun” came on, audience members from around the stadium jumped out of their seats and started jumping up and down shouting “I’m high as a kite.” This music really felt like a blend of ages gathered together to sing about all of life’s teenage angst across time. If you’re interested in avenging some of that angst, the band included their hit song from the soundtrack of 1994’s The Crow, “Color Me Once,” in the setlist. After some saxophone solos and drumming on a barbeque grill, the band closed up their set around 8pm to make way for the headline act.

As the crowd awaited the band’s first return since their 2022 Reunion Tour, the stage screens played through images with rules spelled out in the band’s own language, Keposhka. Luckily for those of us not fluent, English translations were sprinkled throughout. I couldn’t find a list online, but from what I wrote down, the rules were as follows:

1. Families of 4 and under are expected to applaud for 30 seconds at a time. Any family or gathering of 5 or more members can only snap fingers and hoot, clapping or hollering of any kind is prohibited.
2. No weapons, dental tools or otherwise
3. Do not throw hair
4. Fight only when fought upon. Non-combat is discouraged in all areas
5. No touching!
6. All feet must be covered from sight with foot coverings of some kind
7. Run slowly when possible
8. Fun having is mandatory. Mandatory fun having is good for the mind
9. No time for bad times, unless timing is bad, whereas make time feel worse and so forth and so on
10. Give more than you have, take what you have been given only
11. Only sing along when unsure of the correct lyrics

This set of rules sets the stage for what really plays out as a very totalitarian government run act for the night. If you’re new to the world of My Chemical Romance, some old and new themes of The Black Parade will be mentioned below. For those interested, I encourage you to look deeper into the lore. Here are some important pieces of information for the rest of this review.

• Seventeen years after The Black Parade, a “great Dictator” rose to power, ushering in “The Concrete Age”, a time of stability and abundance in the fictional land of DRAAG
• “He Who Shall Not Die” refers to the “Grand Immortal Dictator” of DRAAG, who has granted the band, now His Grand Immortal Dictator‘s National Band, permission to perform again.
• “The Inspector” shows up many times throughout the show dressed in a very nice suit, potentially reprimanding Gerard, the lead singer.

After the crowd clearly disregards the screen saying “Please take your seats”, the sound of drums start to beat as soldiers are bringing out something to burn. As a woman in red approaches front and center, the Draag National Anthem plays out. The woman finishes by stating this was brought to you by the Dictator, He Who Shall Not Die.

As The Inspector hands Gerard a piece of paper that he’s very perturbed to read, the band starts into “The Sharpest Lives.” While Gerard’s voice sounds a tad different from what I’m used to from studio recordings, I was blown away at how unique but similar it sounded for his live performance after so many years of performing. The Inspector returns and brings out a podium and a small stool for Gerard to stand upon. After finding the microphone and putting it in place, the crowd erupts in unison as we start into “Welcome to the Black Parade.” Getting to scream this into the open air venue as commercial airliners fly overhead and the sun was setting brought the usual appreciation for the unique experience that concerts can be in different settings. This is where the main drama around the tour kicks in. While I haven’t personally read into it, it sounds like the internet was quite upset at what followed.

Before entering the venue, a table was set up with signs that had two sides; one that said “yay” and one that said “nay.” As the song ends, the audience is instructed to pull out their signs for a “Democracy Experiment.” Four people with bags over their heads are walked out onto a stage that extends further into the audience. This all happened pretty quickly, but we’re instructed to vote and elect these members. While it seemed a little unclear about what voting “yay” or “nay” meant, the vote had been settled. Gerard announces that the election is over, and while he’d love for them to be elected, it would not be happening. Cardboard-looking cutouts popped up in the shape of soldiers with guns and loud bangs were heard with puffs of smoke filling the air. The 4 people with hoods fall to the ground and are carried away. “I Don’t Love You,” starts to play.

As Gerard mocks The Inspector after he brings out another piece of paper, the crowd gasps as The Inspector slaps Gerard. He later suggests that we’ve all been waiting for that to happen for MANY years. We’re then given a beautiful cello intro for the song “Cancer.” As the background changes into videos of command center station computers scanning for ships and missiles, “Mama” begins to play. As the song gets more intense, flames begin to go off all around the stage. You could feel the heat throughout T-Mobile Park as the whole place was lit up from the fire shooting in all directions.

A short intermission occurs as Gerard takes a seat on center stage and picks up a magazine seemingly titled “MURDER”. He combs his hair and laughs maniacally while reading through the magazine. The background eventually turns into schematics of a missile, eventually turning into what seems like a scene made from old toys. A toy missile blasts off and makes its way through the sky until the scene eventually goes to static. The Inspector returns as he forcibly helps Gerard put his parade jacket back on. As “Teenagers” plays, the screen plays what looks like a propaganda game show in the background.

Side note, while waiting between acts, there was a group of folks running around handing out little blue slips of paper. These read “put these over your phone’s light during Disenchanted.” While scrolling through TikTok a few days after the show, it turns out this was a fan made project that the band had no idea about.

As “Disenchanted” starts, roughly 15% of folks maybe had their little blue tag covering their phones as most of the crowd turned on their cell phone lights. This really made for a unique scene of lights filling the stadium, speckled with little blue lights throughout. Gerard eventually asked the audience if his phone light could turn blue as well, as if it was something newer phones were capable of doing. It was really cool to see the fan’s efforts be acknowledged in this way. More fire shoots off from the stage as the intro for “Famous Last Words” kicks off. A map of the rocket’s path from earlier is brought back on screen showing its origin country colored blue making its way towards the destination country colored red. A timer shows up on screen and starts counting down and as the song ends, the timer hits 0. Caution lights begin to flash as the song ends with a more acoustic version.

Suddenly a man in a clown outfit reminiscent of The Inspector joins the stage and a knife is introduced between the two of them. Blood is sprayed and the white outfit worn by the clown gets covered as he and Gerard fight over the knife. Gerard ends up on the ground crawling over to crime scene markings that are shaped in a stereotypical murder scene style. As he dies, security enters the stage from both sides and bags up all the band members and the clown continues to perform to “Blood.” Near the end of the song, he opens up his jacket to show the crowd he’s covered in a bomb vest. As the song comes to an end, the bombs go off with loud bangs and more puffs of smoke. A cellist makes her way to the stage that extends further into the audience and plays as a timelapse video of a rotting deer carcass plays in the background. While this ends the show for The Black Parade, this was only the first part of the evening.

A few moments after leaving the stage, the band returns to the same extended stage in more generic clothing. Audience members rushed over to this smaller stage as “I’m Not Okay,” kicked off for what felt like a much more emo-style show setup. The band pauses to give shout outs to many of the people that helped make the show possible. Gerard mentions that he couldn’t believe that MCR’s fans are still alive at this point. After mentioning that the post-show setlist will likely change from show to show, the band plays through hits and B-sides alike from all different albums spanning their career. They finish this secondary setlist off with “Helena” before leaving the stage and closing out the night.

Concert Photos by the legendary: Lindsey Byrnes