Written by Dustin Schumacher
Back in November of 2024 us elder emo fans finally got the news we were asking for – ‘My Chemical Romance are back’. Tickets started selling out left and right upon the news with many paying 10x the amount that they had hoped to pay for nose bleed seats.
Did many millennials have to let a car payment and a student loan debt slide? Yes. Was it worth it to have a night full of crying and reclamation of teenage angst? Absolutely.
We here at Alternative Nation were very honored and lucky to get two incredible tickets from our good friends over at Live Nation who truly hooked us up. Admittedly, we did buy tickets previous to getting media tickets because we just could not contain ourselves upon hearing that the band was back together.
Our reporters headed out to Arlington, Texas for an unforgettable show. So, darken your clothes and strike a violent pose, because this isn’t just a nostalgia grab – it’s a death wish.
What’s really unique about the My Chemical Romance 2025 tour is that they have a unique opener for each event. The inclusions thus far have been bands such as Evanescence, Death Cab For Cutie, Alice Cooper, Pixies, 100 Gecs, Thursday, Violent Femmes, Wallows, and Garbage at the Arlington, Texas show.
First and foremost, the place was packed. Other than some closed off seating, it seemed like all 50,000 seats were taken as well as the floor. What was maybe more surprising than that was that it was mostly young teens at the show. Call me out of touch, but I didn’t realize that a band that I heard of years before they took off from New Jersey could have such staying power through the generations. It was not only astonishing, but made me realize that I now wear ‘Elder’ in ‘Elder Emo’ with pride.
Garbage opened the show and right off the rip, we were stunned. Not only did the band sound like they never missed a beat, but they absolutely had the best sound of the night.
A surreal moment for us was had with not only seeing the one and only Butch Vig on the drums (which, we joked most people probably did not realize this was the man who created albums such as ‘Nevermind’ by Nirvana, ‘Siamese Dream’ by Smashing Pumpkins, ‘Wasting Light’ by the Foo Fighters, and Green Day’s ‘21st Century Breakdown,’ but that’s our dumb gatekeeper mentality here) but we were there for his 70th birthday!
Butch and the band took shots of alcohol to celebrate this huge milestone as the crowd sang happy birthday to him. For someone seeing Garbage for the first time, not only were we blown away by how great they sounded, but what an honor to be there on a special night. The crowd of teens, who, may or may not have known of Garbage (as Shirley Manson joked) seemed to be in love with this iconic band they were just now discovering. Good job, My Chemical Romance for giving kids a glimpse into this era of ‘Riot Grrrl’ perfection.
After Garbage headed out for the night, My Chemical Romance took the stage with a roaring crowd seemingly putting Gerard Way back exactly to the pinnacle that he was at when the ‘Black Parade’ had its foot on all of our teen-something’s neck on the way to school in the early 2000s as we shuddered at the fact of asking out our crush or thinking ‘Am I an alien? Do my parents even get me?’
The band took the stage and automatically, we knew what kind of night we were in for. The night was an entire ‘Rocky Horror’ meets Queen with a splash of political commentary told through the lens of, what seemed to be, a band forced against their will to abide by the rules of a fictitious dictator and his country at large.
The band played the entire ‘Black Parade’ album as the tour name notes. The stage show didn’t quite line up exactly as the story of the ‘Black Parade,’ as the stage show itself, again, was more of a political commentary. I would argue that what we took away from it was that it was leaning more into the tongue in cheek of ‘Hey, we are doing this tour because the label is forcing us to and therefore here’s the songs you love, here’s the dictator, and here you go.”
This felt apparent to us about halfway through the set where a man comes out and gives Gerard Way a note, to which, Gerard stomps his feet saying “No!” as the guards start to encroach on him. He finally agrees and starts up into one of the ‘Black Parade’ tracks.
So, while many have commented on this show being a ‘finger in the face’ of the current American government and/or Russian government – we see it a bit differently. Maybe we are totally wrong here, because, yes, we 100% see where it can be a political piece and very well done; we also seemed to pick up on the nuances of it, maybe being about the music industry.
Now, to the elephant in the room. Bob Bryar. No, there was no mention of Bob. There was no dedication piece (understandably so if you go down the Bob rabbit hole), and there was zero hint at a memoriam about the man.
As tears and cracked voices filled the stadium on the first key of G major for the infamous ‘Welcome To The Black Parade,’ we realized, more than ever, how absolutely important My Chemical Romance was and has been to so many people and so many generations. The band not only helped so many of us through our awkward teen years with the side parted hair and the feeling of feeling out of place in our bodies, but they grew with us. My Chemical Romance felt like a comforting hug to our youth on this night. A band saying “Hey, we told you how it would go, and we’re glad you’re still here with us…Bring it in..It’s okay, we promise.” Fifty thousand voices gave My Chemical Romance fifty thousand different reasons why they mattered so much to each and every individual.
The end of the show ended with a bang as the band got captured and Gerard Way eeked his way on the floor to the nuclear button to destroy the whole ‘country’. That man that served Gerard the note? Yeah, he ends up blowing himself up into a million pieces. What an absolutely monster stage show to say the least.
As we end this out, we have to note that the most intimate part of the show was the aftermath. After My Chemical Romance were all captured and killed, we see them come back out to a mini stage where they got closer to the crowd. At this point, the band have dropped the gimmick and are in streetwear clothes. It put a huge smile on our faces when Gerard alluded to feeling like a small band again as he says “We’re My Chemical Romance and we’re from New Jersey.” It filled us tri-state area originals with so much joy and passion for what our little area had created. They played some more hits here and some early works as well as some B-sides. Also, they played an incredible cover of ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ by Smashing Pumpkins, which, we are guessing came from the memes of Gerard Way and Billy Corgan being related.
As a final note and score, I was lucky enough to see My Chemical Romance at around their peak in 2011 with Blink-182. I went with my brother’s friend who could actually drive at the time and we had great seats for the event. This was a really weird time for Blink-182 and the tension was for sure still there with Tom DeLonge back in the band and their sound just wasn’t great. That said, My Chemical Romance opened for them during this tour along with Manchester Orchestra and both bands just blew them out of the water that night. My Chemical Romance was touring their ‘Danger Days’ record at the time, which was a shift from their other works, but they did the party music pretty well for what it’s worth, but overall the album didn’t resonate too heavily with their angry and sad core of fans.
All of that to say that yes, fourteen years later, My Chemical Romance sounded better now than they did even at their most prime stage of their career. In fact, I’d gamble that this is truly their prime as a band and we hope to hear new music as a sendoff to an iconic group.
So long and goodnight, My Chemical Romance.
