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 On the red side of the placard was the word Yea while the black flipside purely read Nay Fans would later be directed to use these signs to determine the fate of chosen 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 limit 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 s mall-rock manifesto The Black Parade as a fully fleshed out and disturbing rock opera before returning to play a totally straight-forward and in my opinion more enjoyable second set of other material My Chemical Romance performs at Oracle Park in San Francisco on July Jim Harrington Bay Area News Group 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 altogether into the sad dystopian storyline that borrows no shortage of ideas from Soviet Union Cold War times while keeping one foot in at present s Trump era This was Night of the roadshow dubbed the Long Live The Black Parade Tour which opened in Seattle a little over a week prior is at the moment set to include a dozen dates stretching into It s celebrating the th 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 a rock opera with a lineage that can be easily traced back Pink Floyd s The Wall Related Articles Pop superstar gives it his all for fanilows in Oakland Katy Perry survives scary concert moment in SF Not nowadays Satan Chris Martin kiss cam catches former Silicon Valley CEO in affair at Coldplay show Fans are upset over why Steve Miller Band canceled concert tour Bay Area arts great shows and concerts to catch this week Taking the stage just after p m the New Jersey outfit kicked off the show just like the album itself with The End My Chemical Romance spent the next -plus minutes meticulously recreating 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 My Chemical Romance performs at Oracle Park in San Francisco on July Jim Harrington Bay Area News Group Way was a convincing crazed front man adopting a nasal Eastern European-esque accent as he spoke to the crowd without ever urgent 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 multiple of which had to do with the kind of control the regime 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 My Chemical Romance performs at Oracle Park in San Francisco on July Jim Harrington Bay Area News Group 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 ultimately 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 program 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 revealed Let s expletive do this My Chemical Romance performs at Oracle Park in San Francisco on July Jim Harrington Bay Area News Group The group went on to deliver another songs over the discipline 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 majority of 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 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 The last day firmly putting an exclamation point on what had been one of the bulk highly anticipated rock shows of the year in the Bay Area And it was one that largest part definitely lived up the hype Not bad for a group that hasn t published a new album in years Setlist Set The Black Parade The End Dead This Is How I Disappear The Sharpest Lives Welcome to the Black Parade I Don t Love You House of Wolves Cancer Mama Sleep Teenagers Disenchanted Famous Last Words The End reprise Break Cello solo Set Thank You for the Venom I m Not Okay I Promise Summertime Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na It s Not a Fashion Comment It s a expletive Deathwish SING Bullet With Butterfly Wings Boy Division Helena The Kids From The day before