Three Cheers For The Black Parade: Five Pivotal My Chemical Romance Performances
Wednesday, 13 August 2025
Written by Huw Baines
Photo: Chapman Baehler
“We were spectacular. Every show I knew this, every show I felt it with or without external confirmation.”
That was Gerard Way back in 2013, sending My Chemical Romance into the beyond with as much pomp, ceremony and smeared black eyeliner as some of their best music. The truth is, they were spectacular — the sort of community-driven unifying force that shapes the way kids experience music — and of late the reunited emo titans have been spectacular all over again with their Long Live The Black Parade Tour, a stadium show that reanimates the iconic marching band alter-egos that propelled them to the top of charts worldwide back in 2006.
They are poised to bring the tour to the UK next summer, with two dates in the diary at Wembley Stadium. Tickets go on general sale at 10am this Friday (August 15), so while we wait, here are five pivotal performances from My Chemical Romance’s storied history that paved the way for their latest high-stakes theatrical extravaganza.
Maxwell’s, Hoboken, New Jersey, 2002
Trawling the web for early MCR shows is a dicey business. You’ll find some cool curios and some not-so-great thrashing around. And then you’ll see something like Headfirst For Halos at Maxwell’s in Hoboken in 2002. There’s nothing flash about it on the surface — it’s soon after the release of their debut LP ‘I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love’ and they’re opening for a band called The Lawn Darts in T-shirts and jeans — but when Ray Toro’s guitar starts to wail through the song’s grandiose intro, things start falling into place. It’s only a short hop from there to the stadium-shaking anthemics that would course through their later work. An aside: according to NME this was the only show that Elena Lee Rush, grandmother of Gerard and Mikey Way and the inspiration for the song Helena, would ever see the band perform.
Download Festival, Donington Park, 2005
My Chemical Romance began 2005 with their biggest UK tour to that point, including a night at Brixton Academy, as their second album ‘Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge’ continued its sleeper hit trajectory. By the time they returned for a set at Download that summer, though, things had reached fever pitch. The tent was packed and bristled with anticipation — some kids staked out their spots at the front for hours before their scheduled early evening start time — and the crowd hung off every word, ripping the intro to Helena away from a flak-vest clad Gerard and refusing to let go.
Palacio de los Deportes, Mexico City, 2007
The Black Parade were given corporeal form for the first time at the Hammersmith Palais in London in 2006, kicking off one of the most remarkable punks-to-superstars twists in modern rock history. It feels more MCR to talk about how they died than how they lived, though. Immortalised on their ‘The Black Parade Is Dead!’ live album, their show at the Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City was the grand finale for the ghoulish marching band, who went out on their shields in front of a baying crowd. The way the opening of Welcome To the Black Parade reverberates around the cavernous arena is spine-tingling. This was a moment in time.
Reading Festival, 2011
Having been pelted with all manner of things by the holier-than-thou remnants of a Slayer crowd at the 2006 festival — a set that was also notable for a Gerard-led chant of “Fuck the Daily Mail” at the height of the rag’s emo scaremongering — their 2011 headline performance was an exercise in redemption, despite the fact they were about to fire their touring drummer after accusing him of stealing from the group. Fuelled by the DayGlo sounds of their fourth (and currently final) album ‘Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys’, the show reached a fitting conclusion with Brian May entering the fray to play We Will Rock You and Welcome To The Black Parade with the band, closing the circle on the huge influence that Queen had on their outsized taste for the dramatic.
Shrine Expo Hall, Los Angeles, 2019
Announced on Halloween (obviously) and taking place right before Covid knocked the world over, this was the comeback that many thought would never happen. MCR’s first show in seven years was opened by emo legends Thursday — whose singer, Geoff Rickly, produced their debut album — and greeted by the sort of excitement that feels like it changes the chemical composition of the air around you. Starting with I’m Not Okay (I Promise), the band seemed to be having real fun up there, which was a revelation after a few tortured years to bring down the curtain on their initial run. The really cool thing, though, was that the sea of faces greeting the band featured a lot of people who were too young to see them play the first time around. That’s made their reunion all the more satisfying — it’s not just for the old heads to remember a time when their knees didn’t hurt.
My Chemical Romance Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Fri August 15 2025 - PHILADELPHIA Pennsylvania - Citizens Bank Park (USA)
Fri August 22 2025 - TORONTO Ontario - Rogers Centre (Canada)
Fri August 29 2025 - CHICAGO Illinois - Soldier Field (USA)
Sun September 07 2025 - BOSTON Massachusetts - Fenway Park (USA)
Sat September 13 2025 - TAMPA Florida - Raymond James Stadium (USA)
Sat September 20 2025 - ATLANTA Georgia - Pedmont Park (USA)
Fri July 10 2026 - LONDON Wembley Stadium
Sat July 11 2026 - LONDON Wembley Stadium
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