Your survival guide to MCR’s Long Live The Black Parade Tour
My Chemical Romance is currently on their Long Live The Black Parade Tour, performing their album The Black Parade in its entirety. This would be a shocking statement for any MCR fan to hear between 2013 and 2019. After years of holding onto hope that the band would return after their (arguably premature) split in 2013, they finally announced that they would return to playing live shows again in 2019. I saw MCR in 2022. It was incredible, I cried, it was a night I had dreamed of for 9 years after discovering them only a few months after their separation.
However, seeing them on their current North American tour has completely consumed me, as I closely follow new details coming out of each performance, piecing together the storyline behind the tour. If you thought this was just another run of reunion shows from a popular rock band or a concert designed for the casual listener, you are completely mistaken.
This surely makes zero sense to anyone who isn’t keeping up with the MCR tour, so let’s explain the significance of their current performances to the casual listener who may not entirely understand the MCR lore. Regardless of if you love or hate this band, this tour is an incredible accomplishment and a special moment in rock ‘n’ roll history.
I cannot insist enough that you get yourself a ticket and either go into the show completely blind, or continue reading to get caught up and prepare to continue piecing the story together yourself. Either way, I promise you it’s worth every penny.
A Very Brief History of MCR (Spoilers Ahead!)
My Chemical Romance quickly gained a massive following during their original run as a band from 2001 to 2013. After witnessing the twin towers falling on 9/11 while on his commute to Cartoon Network, frontman Gerard Way started the band as a way to put something meaningful out into the world.
Each of their four albums are concept albums. Their first independent release on Eyeball Records, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, is a punk record that explores themes of depression and anger through a tale of two “Demolition Lovers” who embark on a Bonnie & Clyde-style crime spree. After signing a deal with Reprise Records, the band released their second album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, where they tighten up their storytelling and production quality, delivering a more defined continuation of this storyline.
This brings us to their third album, ranked #361 On Rolling Stones’ “500 Best Albums of All Time” list, and widely considered their magnum opus, The Black Parade. This album is structured as a rock opera, following the story of a character known as The Patient, a man dying tragically young, his reflections on his life, and his journey to the afterlife. In this story, death comes for him in the form of his fondest memory: the time his father took him to see a marching band.
In 2007, My Chemical Romance ran a world tour for The Black Parade, performing the full album in character as the marching band– also named The Black Parade –delivering a theatrical performance complete with costumes, pyrotechnics and frontman Gerard Way being wheeled out on stage on a gurney. You can see how the foundation of this storyline is introduced in their “Welcome to the Black Parade” music video.
MCR delivered this performance for the last time in Mexico City, where Gerard ended the concert by announcing “The Black Parade is Dead!”. In their fictional universe, the story goes that the The Black Parade band had died in Mexico City after performing. They continued the tour past this date, but did not play the album in full and played as themselves, not their Black Parade alter egos.
The New Jersey’s rock legends went on to release another full length LP, Danger Days, a compilation album, Conventional Weapons, and then announced their break up in 2013. They had been working on a fifth album, but believed it was too dark to release, and the arduous writing process behind the scrapped album has been credited as part of the reason that they split up. The band released a greatest hits album, May Death Never Stop You in 2014, as well as a 10th Anniversary Edition of The Black Parade in 2016. Many fans believed that they had permanently disbanded, but continued to hold on to hope that they would one day return.
Promotional graphic for The Black Parade
In 2019, the band finally announced that they would return to playing live shows. Post-reunion, they released a new single The Foundations of Decay, as well as a deluxe version of The Black Parade and a remastered version of Three Cheers. Personally, I never followed the post-breakup action too closely. Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled to hear the news and never stopped loving them. They always stayed in my regular rotation of music, but there was always something holding me back from getting more invested in their return. Getting last minute tickets to see the band at the New Jersey hometown stop of the Long Live the Black Parade Tour has completely resparked my love for this band that inspired so much of who I am today, and has given me a profound sense of respect for the artists that they are. My Chemical Romance are true masters of their craft; seeing them creating their elaborate storylines in real time is an incredible thing to witness.
Understanding the 2025 Long Live the Black Parade Tour
MCR has always been theatrical. Drawing inspiration from David Bowie and Pink Floyd, as well as New Jersey horror punk legends the Misfits, and with frontman Way also working as a comic book writer, storytelling and fantasy is at the heart of their work. Since reuniting in 2019, the band has done a few runs of reunion shows, including some festival stops, but their current 2025 tour is something entirely different. This nine show North American tour, beginning in Seattle on July 11 and concluding in Tampa on September 13, is redefining the stadium concert experience. It’s a full album performance of The Black Parade, with relevant political commentary delivered through a continuation of the stories told throughout their entire body of work. It is truly unbelievable how effectively and clearly it has been executed.
The structure of these concerts is the same as the original tour for The Black Parade: they perform the record in full in character, and then perform a B-Stage set with hits and deep-cuts as themselves.
The story unfolding on this year’s tour may be their most in-depth storytelling yet; there are too many details and theories to cover everything but I’ll try to give you an idea of the extent they are taking this story to!
Taking place in a fictional country called DRAAG, The Black Parade band has been found alive and is performing once again. Their first promotional video announcing this tour, introduces many new ideas, with a caption reading:
“It has been seventeen years since The Black Parade was sent to the MOAT. In that time, a great Dictator has risen to power, bringing about "THE CONCRETE AGE”; a glorious time of stability and abundance in the history of DRAAG. His Grand Immortal Dictator wishes to celebrate our rich and storied culture, fine foods, and musical entertainments by welcoming you to these great demonstrations of power and resolve. And lending voice and song for the first time in six thousand two hundred and forty six days, their work privilege ceremoniously reinstated, will be His Grand Immortal Dictator's National Band... The Black Parade.”
Screen capture of the 2025 tour announcement video
Before the band takes the stage, stadium screens project the Dictator’s rules. Contradictory and seemingly full of nonsense, they are shown once in English, and then again in Keposhka, a fictional language created for this tour. Cohesive sets of fake propaganda videos are shown as well, setting the scene of a dystopia where nationalism and loyalty to the Dictator is used as a mechanism of social control.
Decoder key for translating Keposhka, this tour’s fictional language (source: Reddit)
A ceremonial bundle of wheat is brought out as the DRAAG national anthem is played. The members of The Black Parade band come out, punch their time cards for a character known as The Clerk, and assume their stage positions. Throughout the show, His Grand Immortal Dictator is shown on screens, sat live across from the stage as he watches the performance expressionless, except for occasionally taking notes, and at LA’s Dodger Stadium, eating a hotdog (I hope I’m not losing you, there’s a lot more to cover here).
His Grand Immortal Dictator eating a hotdog at Dodger Stadium during MCR’s Los Angeles performance.
Upon entrance to each venue on the tour, concert goers are handed signs that say “YEA” on one side and “NAY” on the other. A few songs into the show, we are presented with four masked individuals standing on the B-Stage. Early on this tour, Gerard Way explains that the masked persons were charged with questioning “the vitality of His Grand Immortal Dictator”, and the audience is asked to vote on whether or not they were guilty and should be executed. Following this, the four people are gunned down by a firing squad. This moment quickly went viral online, drawing huge amounts of attention to the intense display of violence.
By the time the band made it to New Jersey, 5 weeks into the tour, Gerard barely explained the segment anymore. At the MetLife Stadium concert, it seems that his character almost forgot, saying “Oh wait, we’ve got one more thing to do, let’s fucking kill some people, get [the signs] up, alright you know how this works by now right?” before bringing the four masked individuals to their inevitable fate.
The four bodies are carried away by men in uniform, except for at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, where one of the criminals survived and was then awarded a brand new car. In Toronto, the audience were given signs that said “CHICKEN” or “FISH” instead, and in Chicago, the audience weren’t even given signs, except a few handed out at the last minute, but were still asked to vote. Personally, I have interpreted these nightly changes to signify the way that we are quickly desensitized to violence as well as the fact that we don’t have much control through voting. Seeing strong political commentary that does not come at the expense of the quality of world-building of this fictional city, DRAAG and its immortal dictator, is very impressive.
Later on, Gerard takes his iconic Black Parade jacket off for the band's performance of “Sleep”, and The Clerk presents it to him to put back on before one of their most well known songs, “Teenagers”. At the start of the tour, Gerard was compliant with this. When Gerard began to refuse to put the jacket back on, The Clerk started by slapping him, and in Chicago, it devolved into a full blown brawl on the ground with The Clerk wrestling the jacket back onto a disheveled and battered looking Black Parade frontman.
Heavily supported by this scene in the show, there is a popular theory that the band is stuck in a time loop, being killed or kidnapped at the end of each performance, and revived with their memories wiped to perform again each weekend. With each performance, it seems that the band is remembering more and becoming increasingly aware and defiant of what the Dictatorship is putting them through.
During the final track, "Famous Last Words”, an anthem of perseverance, a clown comes out on stage and stabs Gerard Way, as the remaining Black Parade band members continue playing until they have bags put over their heads and are dragged off stage by men in uniform. With the stage engulfed in flames and the Black Parade band seemingly gone and dead, the clown dances around the stage to the hidden track at the end of the album, “Blood”. As a grand finale, the clown removes his costume, revealing a bomb strapped to his chest, and blows himself up.
As the band prepares to take the B-Stage to perform as My Chemical Romance, Clarice Jensen plays a cello solo for the crowd. This is not just an intermission to go to the bathroom and chat. Like the way that the ginger between sushi rolls is an enjoyable experience enjoyable in its own right, not as a mere palate cleanser, Clarice Jensen's performance was amazing to watch, even as someone who does not have much of any previous interest in that type of music (I don't know if I've ever even heard a cello solo performance.) Processing this fever dream of a performance by one of my favorite bands of all time while watching a beautifully haunting solo cello performance was one of the most memorable concert moments I’ve ever experienced. MCR came back without their alter ego personas, thanking the crowd and their incredible crew, and played another 10 songs, a mix of hits and deep cuts.
The passion that MCR brings to these performances and the dedication that their fans have to decoding every detail after their long hiatus, is truly an incredible thing to witness. Up until 2019, I had pretty much accepted the fact that I would never get to see MCR perform live. Getting to see them not only perform, but also continue telling their story is a dream come true.
There are many theories being discussed as fans are eager to understand the full storyline that is unfolding. Rosie of Disloyal Order on YouTube provides a great entry point for analyzing the concept behind this tour. Many are speculating that they may be working on another album. Whatever the case is, it is clear that MCR is back to their creative world-building, developing a plot line that connects to, and potentially bridges, the fictional universes that their previous concept albums explore. Through a full blown concert experience, MCR is breathing new life into The Black Parade at a time when we need them the most. This overview just barely scratches the surface of this performance.
My Chemical Romance at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ (August 9, 2025). Photo by Kate Engel.
FINAL THOUGHTS
From the outside, this may just seem like elaborate political commentary, and it would be impressive in its own right if it didn’t go any further than that. However, MCR hold true to their roots as theatrical storytellers, and the way that they are continuing the story of The Black Parade, the marching band that leads The Patient to the afterlife, is one of the most elaborate takes on a concept album in rock history. The quality of their execution in expanding the concept behind their 2006 record, while simultaneously forming strong political commentary, is an incredibly impressive feat and a testament to the true artistry that is My Chemical Romance.
This tour has reignited my love for them and I couldn't be more excited about getting to watch it all unfold in real time. During ballads like “I Don’t Love You” and “Cancer”, the stadium is lit up with phone flashlights waving in the air. I noticed many people around me turning around to take it all in, watching in awe as every single word was sung back to the band. Watching them perform to sold out stadiums with new storylines and characters to present to us, when we never knew if they were going to get back together, is truly a healing experience.
The band will continue after the North American leg of this tour concludes in Tampa, FL on September 13, taking the show to Mexico City once again in 2026, as well as two nights at London’s legendary Wembley Stadium.
