It was 20 years ago this weekend when American rock band My Chemical Romance stormed the UK charts with their third studio album The Black Parade. Lead single Welcome to The Black Parade granted the emo group their first No 1 across the pond and saw Gerard Way and the band hit the mainstream with their punk rock opera extravaganza, following in the footsteps of Green Day’s American Idiot and Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. In celebration of the much-loved record’s 20th anniversary, the reformed MCR has been on a world tour performing the album in full as their Black Parade alter-egos ala The Beatles’ Sgt Peppers (complete with gothic military attire), followed by a second half featuring hits from their other three records to date. Having performed in the UK in the summer, including three sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium, My Chemical Romance are concluding their American leg with five nights at the Hollywood Bowl – the first band ever to do so – including a Halloween night finale. I was fortunate enough to attend the first show, which was postponed by 45 minutes due to a rare LA rainy day affecting travel, but thankfully the pour had subsided by the time MCR hit the stage at 845pm.
Fans familiar with the Long Live the Black Parade tour will know it’s a theatrical extravaganza, not just full of fireworks and flames, but unfurling flags and a full cast of actors and dancers. Set in the fictional totalitarian state of Draag, the Black Parade band’s role in the revolutionary storyline is to perform for the Grand Immortal Dictator amid warring revolutionaries and eccentric characters, all of whom embody the macabre aesthetics of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
As the tour has progressed over a year, so has the storyline, with fans in different cities experiencing different set pieces from others. Between the iconic Black Parade album songs in this Hollywood Bowl show, there’s a birthday cake assassination, dancers announced as the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders during a performance of Teenagers (the real ones have since issued a lawsuit) and a man strapped against his will to a nuclear warhead ready for launch.
At the start of the show, a couple of Soviet style announcements from the actors were followed by the stage spinning around to reveal MCR’s Black Parade alter-egos standing defiant and ready to launch into their magnum opus. As singer Gerard Way kicked off with double-banger The End and Dead!, the crowd (many of whom were young fans not even born when the record was released) went ecstatic.
The frontman’s effortless charisma throughout was the night’s highlight. The age-defying 49-year-old – plastered in white pale makeup – gloriously turns himself into something resembling a gothic Freddie Mercury. Unsurprising, of course, given Queen’s huge influence on the band and album.
Jumping around on stage for the story’s theatrics, to kneeling in anguish as he belted out the emotional lyrics of the grand, bombastic finale, Famous Last Words, what was particularly pleasing to hear was how clear the lyrics were from his vocals. On too many occasions, the sound is bad at concerts where you can’t even make out what’s being sung. This was far from the case at Hollywood Bowl, however, thanks to the newly upgraded
L-Acoustics sound system. Installed this year, the company’s Source Intelligence software solves an age-old problem of the singer’s mic picking up all the other instruments and the audience’s cheers. Instead, the new technology authentically separates the vocals from everything else in real time, resulting in clearly heard lyrics throughout.
After completing the Black Parade, the band briefly left the stage to change out of their uniforms into themselves as My Chemical Romance. Sporting a Liam Gallagher waterproof, Gerard promised to get through a good segment of their other greatest hits before the oncoming curfew, due to the late start. The band, still sparking with energy, thrilled fans with the likes of I’m Not Okay (I Promise) and To The End, before the electric Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) and other classics ahead of Helena to finish the night without an encore. After all, the entire 8-song second half was the encore. As full of life in their deathly glad rags as ever, MCR look like they’re just getting started with rumours of new music on the way. Long Live the Black Parade!
