My Chemical Romance in Toronto
Photos by Lindsey Byrnes
Review by Peyton Mott
August 22, 2025
Toronto, ON @ Rogers Stadium
The Long Live The Black Parade tour is not your average tour, because, well, how many setlists include public executions and evil clowns? As the crowd restlessly shifts, waiting for the band to take the stage, we are fed Draag propaganda via infomercials transitioning into the official national anthem, performed by vocalist Lucy Joy Althus (also known as the character Marianne).
Before the four-piece steps on stage, they are led in by the Draag national auxiliary band and The Clerk, as he sets up the clock-in box. Each of the core members is forced to stamp their clock in cards, with guitarist Frank Iero, pitching the biggest fit to being forced to conform.
The set follows the original tracklist of The Black Parade record while filling in gaps with different and variously violent skits. Much of the plot revolves around the band’s, and specifically the ringleader Gerard Way’s, refusal to comply with the Grand Immortal Dictator’s rulings.
Singer, Gerard Way, steps up to a podium, decorated in the fictional language known as Keposhka, to deliver the lines of “Welcome to the Black Parade.” Following the speech from the front-person comes The Election. The stage is set up with four masked individuals awaiting trial by jury (the crowd), the catch is, as Gerard Way eloquently puts it, “Who fucking cares. They’re gonna die anyways!” The audience appears to have the choice laid in their hands with a two-sided sign to cast their vote. For the first time in the tour, the signage was changed from one side “YAY” or the other side “NAY” to “CHICKEN” or “FISH”. There was no further explanation; all that resulted from the sea of contradicting nonsensical signs was a quadruple execution.
Back in 2007, it was declared that the Black Parade was dead, and now the Black Parade dies over and over again each week. When the acoustic guitar reemerges, so does guitarist, Ray Toro to intro a reprisal of “The End” as a clown figure hops around stage before initiating the kidnapping and murder of the band then completing the Black Parade album with a rendition of “Blood” followed by revealing an explosive strapped to his chest, ending the first set with a bang if you will.
During the intermission between stage changes, a cellist serenades the crowd before My Chemical Romance steps back into the spotlight. The B-stage setlist is always a random draw, and Toronto was gifted a set heavily laced with the band’s 4th studio album Danger Days – including tracks like “Planetary GO!” “Summertime” “SING” and “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)”. Sandwiched between the aforementioned tracks came a wide variety of the My Chemical Romance discography, with songs from 2004 to 2013.
It depends who you ask, but before jumping into the newly viral The Black Parade B-Side “Kill All Your Friends”, Way possibly slipped up while mentioning being in the studio. For those who haven’t kept track, My Chemical Romance hasn’t released a full-length studio album in 15 years. Following the possible admission, the singer started...acting like a computer? Cheeky save or easter egg, we can’t be sure.
The Long Live the Black Parade tour has breached containment from die-hard MCR fans and has been raising questions, and even borderline satanic panic, all over the world, reflecting the original album tour in 2007. The set bears similarities to the broadway stage show Cabaret and includes intricate details from the fictional language to characters like The Grand Immortal Dictator. The beauty of the stage show remains in the fact that there is always more to uncover, before your foot is even on the premises to when you lay your head to rest, there’s always a new piece of lore passed around fan-based corners of the internet to be investigated. Between people on fire during the extended “Mama” and the puppet Gerard Way reads to before performing “Sleep” this is a tour to remember and a tour your friends won’t believe when you retell the tale.
