[REVIEW] MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE @ ROGERS CENTRE

Sep 7

8/22/2025

If My Chemical Romance was a popular expression nowadays, they would be “If you know, you know” and this was obvious at Rogers Centre on August 22, 2025. Now more than halfway through their “Long Live” The Black Parade Stadium Tour, the band just seems to find ways to keep both new and old fans guessing especially with the apparent expansion of the lore around their 2006 full-length album The Black Parade that was received so well, the single is still celebrated at local Emo Nights and late-night karaoke bars to this day among other favourites from the New Jersey natives.

The tour’s introduction of the authoritarian regime of Draag (complete with a “Grand Immortal Dictator”) finds us with fans observing every detail around this world from the custom typography called Keposhka (used in every facet of the tour down to the shirt washing instructions in their merch) to the slight differences between every show of the tour so far with theories of a grand finale or even a new album on the horizon. Fortunately, loyal fans are used to having their tinfoil hats ready and expect the band to keep their concepts mysterious. It keeps the conversations going and where’s the fun in having all of the answers anyways?

The beginning of the show was signalled by a recording of Irving Kaufman’s Tonight You Belong to Me. The crowd, especially those pressed against the barricade, sang along in unison, arms slung across shoulders as if swaying through a creepy campfire chant. This on top of MCR’s consistent messaging of inclusivity really made it feel that fans of all types have this space in this venue where they can be comfortable to rock out how they want and feel like they belong.That tenderness curdled a bit when the lights cut, a single spotlight falling on uniformed officers of the Draag regime, joined by “The Clerk,” (portrayed by Charlie Saxton) who was already drawing boos from the audience. The tour’s lore sees MCR as the dictator’s reinstated “National Band,” under the Clerk’s supervision with their music now reframed as propaganda.

Appearing blind and dressed in a glamorous red gown, "Marianne" (played by Lucy Joy Altus) sang the national anthem of Draag from the B-stage while the rest of the band punched into their roles, literally clocking in right before Ray Toro’s acoustic strums kicked off The End. From there, The Black Parade was unleashed in full, with Dead!, a song that has the ability to launch any MCR fan into orbit. Frontman Gerard Way yells “The Black Parade is back in action, baby!” before blasting into This Is How I Disappear.

Looking around at Roger Centre, the sight of 40,000 people clapping in unison to The Sharpest Lives inside the Rogers Centre was staggering. Especially for a band once confined to club stages and then arenas, this was a clear level up. Things then took a militant turn when a podium was rolled onstage for Welcome to the Black Parade. Gerard delivered most of the song looking like he was giving a political speech, further immersing the crowd in the regime’s imagery. Taking it a step further, the band leaned hard into the theatrical side of things. During the “Election” sequence, the audience voted with giant placards to decide the fate of 4 hooded “prisoners” based on either “Fish” or “Chicken”. Spoiler: the vote didn’t matter, but the booming cannons and pyro made sure it felt like it did. This portion really set the stage for more social and political messaging as the show went on.

Later, Mama came with fireballs, a burning stuntman sprinting across the stage, and Gerard waving around a creepy puppet he called “The Fool.” By the time Marianne returned to sing the Liza Minnelli part, it felt like the whole stadium had been pulled into MCR’s weird, chaotic world. From there, the production just continued to be relentless. Sleep followed with red-and-blue strobes, and Draag rocket imagery, while Teenagers arrived amid satirical “Quizzo” game show clips and other unsettling Draag media content. By Disenchanted, propaganda screens depicted the dictator scanning the audience like Big Brother.

Memorable moments then came with the final track of the album, Famous Last Words. The chorus was screamed back in full, with fire lining the stage and reminiscent of the music video. Sparks also rained down from the ceiling. Frank Iero bent his whammy bar into distorted agony during the extended outro as the stage’s countdown clock ticked toward the song’s satisfying end. Ray Toro’s acoustic guitar then kicked off the reprise of The End. and gave the crowd one last communal singalong before Gerard was dramatically stabbed by a Pierrot clown (also played by Charlie!) with his bloodied body left under slow-falling confetti as the other band members were bagged and dragged off stage. The absurdly cheerful Blood (complimentary to the Kaufman intro track) played over his mock death with Pierrot dancing to it before revealing an explosive vest detonating himself in one final blast. This had to be rock opera at its finest!

Then came the encore, and with it, a reset. The band came out in plain clothes on the B-stage and reminded everyone, “We’re My Chemical Romance from New Jersey, and we’re going to play some songs for you.” The tone shifted nicely here for sure as things just felt looser like the band jamming in a smaller club. They tore through deep cuts like Boy Division, beloved classics like Thank You for the Venom, and for newer fans with Gerard’s favourite from 2010’s Danger Days, Summertime, an album that saw an evolution in the band’s sound and vibe. It was just track after track of songs that 90% of the audience knew basically word for word. It’s hard to imagine writing songs that have affected so many people this much.

Gerard’s banter balanced the darkness with levity: joking about rhythm guitarist Frank Iero’s shirtless antics back in the day, mangling clichés like “you miss 100 percent of all the shots you ever took,” and riffing on his brother’s pickless bass playing after Mikey threw his pick to fan mid-SING. The crowd was game 100% of the time, even chanting Mikey’s name and erupting into Freddie Mercury-like call-and-responses before Helena closed the night - a beloved song of legend for fans all around. You know what a satisfied crowd looks like when you see one and this was clear to see even with the bittersweet feeling of their only Canadian show coming to an end.

This time around, My Chemical Romance impressively took The Black Parade and somehow breathed new life into it, twisted it, and marched it back onto the world stage as an allegory for power, propaganda, and resistance. The theatricality was outrageous, sometimes grotesque, but always riveting. Either way, it gives all fans new things to think about inside AND outside the world of Draag.

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