Despite technical glitches and drizzle, My Chemical Romance’s Long Live The Black Parade show in Glasgow was a triumph, blending the band’s iconic concept album with spectacular, immersive theatricality.
The mizzle is beginning to waft in as a lone piper takes to the stage in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park. The soundsystem has fallen silent but after the crowd unleash a full-throated rendition of Flower of Scotland the novelty of the kilted musician wears thin, revealing that this isn’t how the show is supposed to open. Chatter rises as the restless crowd becomes distracted. The piper plays on, unamplified. Ten minutes pass before the stage lights fire up and video screens glitch back to life. The spectacle of Long Live The Black Parade may now commence.
Twenty years ago, New Jersey’s My Chemical Romance smouldered at the intersection of pop-punk and hardcore. As the poster children of emo – a genre they would disavow their entire careers – alongside alt rock contemporaries like Green Day and Muse, they engineered songs to house rich characters with deep emotions and elaborate narratives. Concept albums weren’t new but in the early 21st century The Black Parade was a revelation in musical literature. It generated spin-off storylines, inviting fans to proliferate and embellish their theories across the internet; it was world-building before world-building was mainstream and it got fans invested in the art, as much as in the artists who created it.
At first glance, the assembled crowds queuing to get into Bellahouston may look like the antithesis of an Eras Tour audience, but watch closely for a few minutes and you see them exchanging friendship bracelets, applying eyeliner together and complimenting each other’s ties as diligently and joyfully as any Swifties. Aesthetics matter when audiences are in on the act and there’s no denying My Chemical Romance fans are committed to this performance.
Also committed to his performance, for better or worse, is Idlewild’s frontman Roddy Woomble. The band were invited to open the show at the request of Mikey and Gerard Way, who admit to being longtime fans of the Scottish rockers. It’s an honour, of course, but Woomble is clearly suffering the effects of a summer cold, keeping his vocal low in the mix of an otherwise beautifully dynamic sound. Under the circumstances, the addition of The XCERTS’ Murray MacLeod on guitar, without a microphone, seems like a missed opportunity as the harmonies on songs like You Held The World In Your Arms and Little Discourage drift into no man’s land without their strong melodic foundation. The setlist is full of bold choices too and it’s especially fitting to have a few punchy songs from 1998’s Hope Is Important featuring again on the most recent tour. Short, sharp bursts of guitar balance Woomble’s strained voice, offsetting the occasionally unexpected angularity of his pitch. Thankfully perhaps, the majority of the early crowd seem politely indifferent to the whole affair, which finishes with a typically rousing In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction. Focus then shifts to the main event.
Musically, The Black Parade is as bombastic as it is vulnerable but this is only part of why it makes for such an extravagant live production. Long Live The Black Parade provides fresh context through which to experience the album in its entirety; the fictitious nation of Draag, overseen by the Grand Immortal Dictator, is fully fleshed out through projected brutalist cityscapes and austere decor, aristocratic and military wardrobes, a national anthem and even its own language. This theatrical dystopia offers an escape from our own corrupt reality for a brief time, even though the violent and dramatic depiction of authoritarianism feels ambiguous as political judgment or satire. It’s fun, maybe even funny. You certainly don’t need to understand the overarching narrative to appreciate the performance, which is just as well because a large portion of the audience can only glimpse half the action on the vertical video screens positioned either side of the stage, and only if the camera is actually aimed at the right part of the scene. It’s a small complaint against a production of such scale but there’s no denying that for a show so immaculately conceived and engineered, it’s a let down on the presentation.
Fans nearer the front likely won’t have noticed as they’re more at risk of losing eyebrows to the searing pyrotechnics or being sprayed with stage blood – a consequence of the unexpectedly graphic demise of political opposition to the Grand Immortal Dictator, and disregard for democratic process, followed by nuclear warfare. [To be clear, no-one was actually at risk and everything and everyone that caught fire by the end of the set was intended to.] And of course, the music is utterly spectacular! Among the throng of 30-odd-thousand punters who may have listened to The Black Parade earlier in the day, or not once in the last decade, everyone knows every lyric, riff and fill by heart. The band are tight throughout their dark pantomime; Mikey Way’s basslines are polished granite, while Ray Toro’s guitar soars with the majesty of Eddie Van Halen riding a bald eagle on the 4th of July. And to that point, it is the 4th of July so no-one is getting their knickers in a twist over Gerard Way’s cultural ignorance of spice bags or the spontaneous “No Scotland, No Party” chant that erupts out of thin air in the latter part of the night. This is a mutual celebration where My Chemical Romance have brought all the treats.
The anthemic finale of Famous Last Words and reprise of The End all but brings the main feature to a close as the set goes up in flames, the band members either killed by a suicidal Pierrot or carried off by the Draag authorities. The stage is reset while cellist Clarice Jensen is tasked with holding the crowd’s attention or, at least, generating some ambiance between sets. Rain is now falling in droplets and no-one seems to notice, they’re already so sated by what they’ve witnessed.
The band return for their second act. Dressed in civilian garb and without any accoutrements, they finally break character, interacting with one another and addressing the audience with sincerity. The rawness of it all is undeniably jarring and the ten songs rush by in a flurry of fan favourites and some unexpected deep cuts – Ambulance notably making its live debut! Despite preparing for a deluxe reissue of Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys this month, the show is nearly bereft of that album’s material, save for its lead single. Glasgow’s deep affection for the less refined incarnations of the band is on full display as every introduction is met with gasps and squeals of excited disbelief. The night concludes with a surprise closer, Vampires Will Never Hurt You, following which fans are left dazed in an effervescent fug of instant nostalgia. Once again, The Black Parade is dead. Long live The Black Parade.
Words: Kendall Wilson @softcrowdclassic
Pictures: Ryan Johnston @dfconcerts