My Chemical Romance are still chasing creativity into the unknown

Isaac Newton saw that apple falling from the tree and with it, changed the way we recognised physics. Alexander Graham Bell devised a way for us to speak to each other from different locations, which then inspired Lady Gaga and Beyoncé to come together to create ‘Telephone’.

Like these globally recognised geniuses, Gerard Way also changed the world from an idea. After witnessing the 11 September attacks in New York, the New Jersey native holed himself up in his parents’ basement, eager to express the horror of that day coupled with the light at the end of that tunnel. Upon teaming up with drummer Matt Pelissier, the pair workshopped the idea into a legitimate song structure, before landing on their first composition proper, "Skylines and Turnstiles". Way, at the time a major of cartooning and former intern at DC Comics, used the enthusiasm he had for the track to put his comic book career on hold and pursue music.

His penchant for the fantastical and his innate desire to write music would coalesce with My Chemical Romance; the genesis of an idea turned sentient that grew more and more in ambition over its initial twelve year period of activity. As the ambition grew, so did the scale, with the band regarded as juggernauts of alternative music and the nominated guardians of emo. Although technically in its third wave by the date of MCR’s inception, the mainstream presents My Chemical Romance’s 2006 record The Black Parade as the genre’s true manifesto. Releasing at the peak of emo’s subcultural rise, the band's third album spawned a numerous number one single and has sold over four million copies worldwide to date. Not only that, it turned My Chemical Romance from scene superstars to genuine mainstream icons; for better or worse.

The album’s concept – a story about a young man dying of cancer and his passage to the afterlife – gave right-wing media ammunition to place My Chemical Romance at the centre of a moral panic surrounding emo and an exaggeration of the music’s “brainwashing” of the youth towards more morbid sensibilities. Daily Mail-fuelled nonsense aside, the popularity of the album and the importance of its songs to a generation endured over any notoriety forced upon them and maintained its status as one of the 2000s’ most influential records, even long after the band’s disbandment in 2013.

Following on from a hugely successful reunion tour in 2022, My Chemical Romance are currently in the UK on a victory lap, celebrating the 20th anniversary of their biggest album with a brand new tour titled Long Live The Black Parade. Easily their largest headline shows on our shores to date, the tour concludes with three sold-out nights at the 90,000 capacity Wembley Stadium. The band’s initial touring cycle of the album closed with a global run playing the album in full - a complete stage production telling the story of the album with a full cast, movie-worthy set and a visual retelling of The Black Parade’s themes that felt true to Gerard Way’s intentions for the project. It felt closer to Broadway than the sweaty punk shows their die-hards were used to, and through this, it felt like a physical manifestation of a band transcending their own art form, letting the genesis of their creativity mutate into uncharted territory. If The Black Parade Tour was a nucleus mutating into something much wilder, then Long Live The Black Parade is where the nucleus goes nuclear; a vaudevillian fever dream that exists between a cartoonish utopia and a deranged nightmare.

The show’s album-spanning set immerses the audience in the world of Draag; a soviet like state run by The Grand Immortal Dictator, with a number of ominous looking figures doing his bidding. My Chemical Romance act as The Black Parade’s 56th house band, performing to appease the dictator, with each set of songs from the album being given new context by the new story surrounding it, which, as I’m told, has developed consistently over the time that the tour has been running.

Devised completely by Way, the tour’s story is an offshoot of the original narrative from The Black Parade, advancing it as if 20 years has passed. Sitting back and watching it unfold, it’s hard not to be overawed by the scale of production. The audience bear witness to executions, kidnappings, explosions and more, but one genuinely masterful factor is how the stunts and pyro never overwhelm the musical performance. There is a period in the show, during "Famous Last Words", where a man runs across stage set completely ablaze, which while definitely unusual, doesn’t feel out of the question for My Chemical Romance. This is an otherworldly band with an otherworldly catalogue that you’re completely immersed in for the hour long performance. You’re not in Wembley Stadium, you’re in Draag. Anything is possible.

That mantra is central to the relentless creativity of My Chemical Romance and their art. At the centre of everything, they're a band who DIY beginnings were born out of the innate spark within their frontman and de-facto spokesperson to not only speak about the world around him, but to create new worlds to escape to when the real one gets too heavy. My Chemical Romance is testament to not only acting upon an idea, but letting it run truly wild. Nothing is too big or ridiculous - in fact - the bigger the idea, the more reason to follow it. There are multiple occasions in the performance where genuinely ridiculous, pantomime esque moments happen, but aside from a knowing glint in Way’s eye, both him and the whole band are completely locked in; tighter than they’ve ever sounded, with Way acting as the unhinged ringleader behind the madness.

The full immersion within the world of Draag becomes no more apparent than after the show’s violent climax, when the band are forcibly ejected from the stage, leaving behind the ruins of the city they build within their own imaginations. After a brief cello interlude, My Chemical Romance return, not as The Black Parade, but as themselves, to a stage set within the centre of the crowd. Shedding the costumes, accents and melodrama of the previous hour, you’re snapped right back into the real world; a direct realisation of the power this band has to completely enchant an audience through their own vision.

It’s when they’re stripped of all pretense though, that you’re reminded of their other power; they’re a genuinely blinding punk band who thrash out a plethora of hits from a multitude of different sounds and eras, leaving plenty of room for more. Tearing through choice cuts from I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love; Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge; Danger Days; the Conventional Weapons EP; and a gorgeous Morrissey cover that hadn’t been performed since 2003, My Chemical Romance act as a hurricane in the middle of Wembley, reminding the listener that they don’t have to meticulously craft new atmospheres for their audience to exist within to sell out stadiums, they do it because they’re passionate about it. That’s what makes them the greatest band in the world.

Leaving the show, it’s immediately obvious of the impact that the band has had on their cross-generational audience. Some have tattoos dedicated to the characters who only exist within MCR’s narrative universe, others dress up as them entirely (including one woman who had somewhat misguidedly painted herself white, given the 33 degree heat), but the one enduring effect I feel is less reliant on the facade. This band – the world-beating, hope-instilling, escapist behemoth – was conceived with a guitar, a practice amp and an idea. It became, through a willingness to chase that idea through whichever dark, uncertain corners it led them through, an era-defining cultural totem - one that will have a long-lasting effect long after we’ve all joined The Black Parade - the genuine variety in ages proves this (my 56 year old mother has ticket’s for Friday’s show). If that’s not a reason to start that band, write that story, or paint that picture, I don’t know what is. You never know where your own creativity may lead you.