Review: My Chemical Romance marches bloody Black Parade into San Francisco

Fans were given placards as they entered Oracle Park in San Francisco on Saturday night (July 19).

On the red side of the placard was the word “Yea,” while the black flipside simply read “Nay.” Fans would later be directed to use these signs to determine the fate of some hooded individuals lined up in front of a (fake) firing squad on the stage. A majority of “yea” (or red) votes would mean the “execution” would commence.

“I see an overwhelming ocean of red,” My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way reasoned as he looked out at the highly charged capacity crowd in front of him.

And with the fan decision in the books, the firing squad let loose — bang, bang, bang, bang, bang! — and the hooded individuals dropped “dead” to the floor.

It was the dramatic and sinister moment of a highly theatrical show that included no shortage of shock and awe. And all of the former came during the first portion of the massively sold-out concert, as My Chemical Romance revisited its greatest commercial triumph — 2006’s mall-rock manifesto “The Black Parade” — as a fully fleshed out and disturbing rock opera before returning to play a straight-forward (and, in my opinion, more enjoyable) second set of other material.

But Way and his alt-rock companions didn’t just play “The Black Parade” in its entirety, but rather they fully took on the characters of the piece’s fictional Black Parade band and threw themselves completely into the sad dystopian storyline that borrows no shortage of ideas from Soviet Union Cold War times while keeping one foot in today’s Trump era.

This was Night 2 of the roadshow — dubbed the Long Live The Black Parade Tour — which opened in Seattle a little over a week prior is currently set to include a dozen dates (stretching into 2026). It’s celebrating the 20th anniversary of “The Black Parade,” a work that has only grown in stature and acclaim over the past two decades as OG MCR fans keep returning to the opus and younger generations latch onto the rock opera with a lineage that can be easily traced back to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.”

Taking the stage just after 8:30 p.m., the New Jersey outfit kicked off the show — just like the album itself — with “The End.” My Chemical Romance spent the next 70-plus minutes meticulously re-creating “The Black Parade,” wearing the U.S.S.R.-reminiscent marching band outfits while rocking through the tunes in the same order as the original track listing, before winding back where it started with a blood-soaked reprise of “The End.”

Way was a convincing, crazed front man, adopting a nasal Eastern European-esque accent as he spoke to the crowd without ever breaking character during “The Black Parade” segment. He used both (somewhat) subtle sarcasm and over-the-top spectacle to address a number of ongoing societal concerns, many of which had to do with the kind of control the government exerts on our lives. (Those “executed” individuals, for example, were paying the price of having offended the Black Parade’s dictator.)

Way was nothing short of a force of nature in the role, bringing a mix of mania, terror and insanity to a character that felt straight out of the comic books he’s written. (His comic book credits include an acclaimed run on DC’s Doom Patrol and co-creating The Umbrella Academy series, which was then transformed into an excellent Netflix show.)

Having led the charge on the execution of others earlier in the show, Way’s character would meet his own bloody ending as a killer clown waltzed out on stage at the end of the “The Black Parade” performance and stabbed the singer. He’d fall to the floor, painfully inch his way toward to front of the stage, before finally triggering a missile strike that signaled an end to it all, as officers stormed the stage to forcefully remove the rest of the band members.

And, of course, that led directly into:

A cello solo?

Sure, why not? And Clarice Jensen did a fine job with the unnamed piece, giving the band members time to change clothes — and personalities — and make their way out to the a smaller stage erected directly in front of the main one.

Somewhat surprisingly, that’s when the concert got even better.

Not having to worry about the weight of playing its grand rock opera, or dealing with all the special effects, message moments and theatrical devices, the band could just fully concentrate on rocking the crowd.

“We are My Chemical Romance from New Jersey,” Way said. “Let’s (expletive) do this.”

The group went on to deliver another 10 songs over the course of roughly an hour, kicking us in the collective teeth with such rippers as “I’m Not Okay (I Promise),” “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)” and “Helena.” This setlist for this section was quite a bit different than what fans heard during the Seattle opener, with MCR delivering a half-dozen tour debuts in San Francisco.

The most notable number from that collection was the band’s first-ever cover of Smashing Pumpkins’ iconic “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” which sounded even stronger than when the Pumpkins played the song at the same venue in 2024.

“I had a religious experience with this song during the pandemic,” commented Way, who, at times, sounds so much like Billy Corgan that he could be his younger brother.

The group brought the concert to a conclusion with a powerful version of “The Kids From Yesterday,” firmly putting an exclamation point on what had been one of the most highly anticipated rock shows of the year in the Bay Area.

And it was one that most definitely lived up the hype. Not bad for a group that hasn’t released a new album in 15 years.

Setlist:
Set 1 (The Black Parade)
1. “The End.”
2. “Dead!”
3. “This Is How I Disappear”
4. “The Sharpest Lives”
5. “Welcome to the Black Parade”
6. “I Don’t Love You”
7. “House of Wolves”
8. “Cancer”
9. “Mama”
10. “Sleep”
11. “Teenagers”
12. “Disenchanted”
13. “Famous Last Words”
14. “The End.” (reprise)
Break:
15. Cello solo
Set 2:
16. “Thank You for the Venom”
17. “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)”
18. “Summertime”
19. “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)”
20. “It’s Not a Fashion Statement, It’s a (expletive) Deathwish”
21. “SING”
22. “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”
23. “Boy Division”
24. “Helena”
25. “The Kids From Yesterday”