Long Live The Black Parade

My Chemical Romance released their third studio album, The Black Parade, in 2006. where the band would play the album in its entirety as the "Black Parade" alter-ego band. They played as the alter-ego until October 7, 2007, when they declared the Black Parade as dead and stopped performing as them. On October 19 and 20, 2024, My Chemical Romance headlined the When We Were Young music festival, where they performed The Black Parade in its entirety for the first time since 2007. My Chemical Romance announced Long Live The Black Parade on November 12, 2024. Initially, ten shows across North America were announced, spanning across 2025, with most of the shows taking place at Major League Baseball stadiums. Due to high demand, the band had to schedule a second date in Los Angeles after tickets went on sale. In February 2025, it was announced that the band would be headlining that year's Shaky Knees Music Festival on September 20, 2025. In May 2025, the band announced a show in Mexico City on February 13, 2026, officially advertised as "The Black Parade – Alive!". A second show in Mexico City taking place on February 14 was announced a few days later. In June, the band announced a series of dates throughout South America. Dates throughout Southeast Asia were announced in July. In August, the band announced two shows at Wembley Stadium in London for July 10 and July 11, 2026. On September 22, 2025, the band announced a second leg throughout the United States alongside multiple other dates in the United Kingdom and Europe, specifically Spain and Italy. All of the new dates went under the title "The Black Parade 2026". In November 2025, two final dates for the tour at the Hollywood Bowl on October 30 and 31, 2026, advertised as "Devil's Night" in reference to them taking place on Halloween weekend. In combination with the final three dates of the previously announced leg taking place at the Hollywood Bowl, the concerts make My Chemical Romance the first band to perform at the venue five times and were also intended to be the final dates of the tour. In December, the band announced that the Southeast Asia leg of the tour would be delayed until November 2026, making the last scheduled date November 23, 2026 in Jakarta as part of the Hammersonic Festival. They also delayed the first show of the Southern American leg in Colombia from January 22 to February 10. Promotion To promote the tour, My Chemical Romance released a series of teasers and trailers with cryptic meanings, sparking fan debate and speculation. On the day before the initial announcement of the tour in November, the band posted a teaser image on their Instagram page, depicting the skyline of a white city with pieces of confetti floating around, with the letters KCR arranged in a new logo. The post had the caption "If you could be anything, what would you be?". When the tour was announced, the band released a trailer which features a dictator walking out onto a balcony to a cheering crowd in a white-colored dystopian city. The description of the trailer references the time that had passed since the last appearance of the Black Parade alter-ego, and made numerous references to a fictional dictatorship known as Draag. Other teasers related to the tour that were released included ones simply titled "Opera" and "Good Boy". == Production ==

, pictured in his Black Parade uniform|alt=Gerard Way in a skeleton-themed military uniform on a podium delivering the opening words of "Welcome to the Black Parade"For Long Live The Black Parade shows, the band performs two different sets. For the first set, they dress up as their Black Parade alter-egos, performing The Black Parade in its entirety. Their outfits are updated versions of their original Black Parade uniforms. The set features a theatrical-styled production, with the band fully placing themselves into the role of the Black Parade while interacting with multiple other characters. The second set takes place on a B-stage, and features songs from the rest of My Chemical Romance's discography. Rob Sinclair serves as a lighting and production designer for the tour. According to Mike Shinoda, the co-vocalist of the rock band Linkin Park, the two bands planned to do a co-headling tour, but these did not develop further once Linkin Park learned that My Chemical Romance was planning Long Live. In addition to the band's main line-up, the tour features several additional musicians, including drummer Jarrod Alexander, keyboardist Jamie Muhoberac, and percussionist Tucker Rule. Other characters established for the tour include the Grand Immortal Dictator, the leader of the fictional country of Draag and played by Wayne Jay and watches the band from afar; the Gentleman, a ventriloquist dummy that the band met while in prison; Marianne, a guest opera singer played by Lucy Joy Altus; and The Clerk, played by Charlie Saxton. On certain dates, Marianne is replaced by another opera singer, Sylvia, who is played by Charlotte Kelso. Throughout the tour, several ministries of the country were either referenced or made appearances, including the "Ministry of Menial Tasks", the "Ministry of Complimentary Reconditioning", and the "Ministry of Operatic Relations". In the description of the trailer which announced the tour, it states that the Black Parade alter-ego had its work privilege reinstated to celebrate the culture and accomplishments of the regime. The Black Parade's ceremonial title is "His Grand Immortal Dictator's National Band",|left The band's vocalist Gerard Way commissioned typographer Nate Piekos to design a language for the tour, to serve as the language for Draag and to be used on merchandise. The language is known as Keposhka. Several songs were either played for the first time during Long Live, or for the first time in over a decade. During the B-stage set of the band's performance in San Francisco on July 19, they premiered a cover of the Smashing Pumpkins song "Bullet with Butterfly Wings". At the Chicago performance on August 29, Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins joined them for another performance of "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" to close the show. They premiered a cover of Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" on August 9 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. In their first night at Los Angeles on July 26, they played "War Beneath the Rain", a previously unreleased song recorded for The Paper Kingdom. The song was dedicated to the family of their past producer Doug McKean, who were attending the show. The tour also marked the first time that "To the End" and "My Way Home Is Through You" were played live since 2006 and 2008, respectively. == Concert synopsis ==

July 2025–September 2025 Before the show started, wanted posters and various mock "rules" appeared on the show screen; an example of one of the rules is "reading more than one has written is strictly prohibited". The show opened up with Marianne, the opera singer, performing the National Anthem of Draag, "Over Fields", and requesting the audience to partake in the performance. The band then came out on stage in their Black Parade outfits and began performing The Black Parade in full, starting with "The End.", "Dead!", "This Is How I Disappear", and "The Sharpest Lives". and them inviting the mayor of Belleville, New Jersey on stage in East Rutherford. Each show on the tour featured minor differences from the preceding one. After the song, Way invited the audience to participate in a mock election. The album's closing song, "Famous Last Words", utilized pyrotechnics as the stage erupted into flames. being "reconditioned" to perform for the Grand Immortal Dictator. During these shows, the Black Parade outfits were closer to their ones from the original 2007 tour, rather than the 2025 ones. Other alterations included additional propaganda speeches before songs, the lack of mock executions, and updated visuals during "Teenagers" that depicted the set of a children's program rather than a game show. The second set of songs also takes place on the main stage rather than a separate B-stage. The leg being a prequel was revealed during its final night in Mexico City, where Gerard Way was handed his updated jacket from the 2025 leg. == Ticket sales and commercial performance ==

Tickets for the initial ten North American dates went on sale on November 15, 2024. Within a few hours, all tickets to each show had sold out, with 365,000 tickets sold in total. It was widely speculated that the band had opted into Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing feature, which scales the prices of tickets based on their demand. Prices were further accelerated by bot accounts, which were used to automatically purchase tickets and resell them at artificially inflated prices. Some fans criticized the band directly for their handling of ticket sales and alleged use of dynamic pricing, while others debated whether the band willingly opted into the practice, if they were forced into it by Ticketmaster, or if the practice was in use at all. The tour has grossed over $130,100,000, with a total attendance of over 813,000. The first four dates of Long Live earned over $29,900,000, with a total attendance of 158,000. It was the eleventh highest-grossing tour of July 2025; their two shows in Los Angeles, in particular, became the twelfth highest-grossing concert dates of July 2025. In August 2025, the tour grossed over $42,200,000 with an attendance of 207,000. It was the sixth highest-grossing tour of that month. The two final non-festival dates of the initial North American leg in September grossed $16,400,000 with an attendance of 83,100. The three January 2026 dates grossed over $8,400,000 with an attendance of 94,900. The February dates grossed over $25,200,000, with an attendance of 270,000. == Critical reception ==

Long Live The Black Parade received positive reviews from journalists. Lin Yang of The Michigan Daily labeled it the best concert she had ever been to, as a "piece of art, crafted with purpose and poignancy" rather than just a mere nostalgia tour for the album. Jonah Krueger of Consequence said that through its production, the band further established The Black Parade as of relevant as an album was it was when it first released. In an Alternative Press readers poll, Long Live was voted as the best concert tour of 2025; the magazine described the tour as a "one-of-a-kind performance" that elevated The Black Parade's concept and theatrics to that of a Broadway production. Several writers praised the production of the tour and the establishment of a new narrative for The Black Parade. Writing for Paste, Tatiana Tenreyro praised the new narrative created for the tour, saying that Gerard Way managed to create a "both eerily real and absolutely absurd" fictional world, and that doing so for a tour rather than an album was a "next-level achievement". The Hollywood Reporter's Nicole Fell praised the show's theatrics, and wrote that, while a show with The Black Parade played in full would've been successful regardless, the band dedicated themselves to storytelling and made the show the "perfect way to experience [The Black Parade]". Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times, while praising the theatrics, said that the most important part of the experience was how great The Black Parade's songs still were. Rolli said that The Black Parade's songs had still aged well after 20 years, and labeled the show as a "theatrical emo extravaganza". Rietmulder said that Gerard Way's performance during the Black Parade set captivated everyone in the crowd. Krueger wrote that, beyond the theatrics, the band's performance was both "well-rehearsed and energetic", and the energy carried over between both sets. Multiple critics praised the B-stage sets of the tour. Zook felt that, while less of a spectacle than the Black Parade set, the B-stage compensated with pure energy. Both Wood Rolli deemed the B-stage as the better part of the show; Rolli said that, while the Black Parade set was impressive, the B-stage contained the "biggest surprises and thrills". Marko Djurdjić of Exclaim! described the set as a "straight-up rock show", and "unadulterated ripping" with no theatrics or costumes. Multiple critics commented on the authoritarian themes of the Black Parade set, with many interpreting it as an analogy of 2025's political landscape, which they viewed as increasingly authoritarian. Focusing on the show's new context for "Welcome to the Black Parade" as a nationalist speech, Yang interpreted it as calling for the audience to "reflect on [their] own role as both spectators and participants in an increasingly authoritarian and decreasingly democratic [United States], and how easily nationalism can obscure the degradation of democracy until it’s too late". She also believed that the execution vote was an analogy on deportations in the United States throughout 2025. Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times labeled the show as increasingly important in an era where he felt other popular artists were afraid to speak out politically out of fear of alienating their fans. Djurdjić believed that any potential message of the performance was muddied by its scale, and it was unclear whether it was an analogy of authoritarianism in the United States, or the Cold War. He believed that the visuals in particular were lackluster, which he described as attempting to cover several political ideologies like Communism and Nazism all at once, and that the usage of historical imagery made contemporary political commentary harder to understand. == Sample set list ==

The following set list was performed at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas on August 2, 2025. It is not representative of all shows during the tour. 'Act I: 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) • "Blood" (played from tape) • "From A to B" (intermission, performed by Clarice Jensen) Act II: B-Stage • "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)" • "Our Lady of Sorrows" • "Planetary (Go!)" • "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" • "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" (Smashing Pumpkins cover) • "The World Is Ugly" • "Thank You for the Venom" • "Kill All Your Friends" • "Helena" • "War Beneath the Rain" == Tour dates ==

;My Chemical Romance • Frank Iero – rhythm guitar, backing vocals • Ray Toro – lead guitar, backing vocals • Gerard Way – lead vocals • Mikey Way – bass ;Additional musicians • Jarrod Alexander – drums, percussion • Kayleigh Goldsworthy – violin • Clarice Jensen – cello • Jamie Muhoberac – keyboards • Tucker Rule – percussion ;Actors • Lucy Joy Altus – Marianne • Wayne Jay – The Grand Immortal Dictator • Charlotte Kelso – Sylvia • Charlie Saxton – The Clerk ==Notes==