My Chemical Romance opened a five-night residency at the Hollywood Bowl with a theatrical performance of their 2006 album The Black Parade in full, marking the record's 20th anniversary. The show, which began 45 minutes late due to rain affecting travel in Los Angeles, saw the band perform as their Black Parade alter-egos before returning as themselves for a second half of hits.
A Theatrical Return to The Black Parade
The concert is part of the Long Live the Black Parade tour, a worldwide run celebrating the album that gave the emo group their first UK No 1 with the single Welcome to The Black Parade. The show is set in the fictional totalitarian state of Draag, where the Black Parade band performs for the Grand Immortal Dictator amid revolutionaries and eccentric characters inspired by the macabre aesthetics of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
As the tour has progressed over a year, the storyline has evolved, with fans in different cities experiencing different set pieces. At the Hollywood Bowl show, these included a birthday cake assassination, dancers introduced as the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders during a performance of Teenagers (the real cheerleaders have since filed a lawsuit), and a man strapped to a nuclear warhead.
Gerard Way's Standout Performance
Singer Gerard Way, aged 49 and wearing white pale makeup, delivered a charismatic performance that drew comparisons to a gothic Freddie Mercury. His vocals were notably clear throughout, thanks to the newly upgraded L-Acoustics sound system installed at the venue this year. The system's Source Intelligence software separates vocals from other instruments and crowd noise in real time.
The set opened with The End and Dead!, thrilling a crowd that included many young fans not born when the album was released. The emotional finale, Famous Last Words, was a highlight, with Way kneeling in anguish as he sang.
Second Half and Finale
After completing The Black Parade, the band changed out of their uniforms and returned as My Chemical Romance. Gerard Way, wearing a Liam Gallagher-style waterproof, promised to play a selection of hits before the curfew. The band performed songs including I'm Not Okay (I Promise), To The End, Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na), and closed with Helena, treating the entire eight-song second half as an encore.
The band concluded the night without a separate encore, ending the show with energy intact and rumours of new music circulating among fans.
