my chemical romance tour 2013

My Chemical Romance Plot First North American Tour in Nine Years

By Jon Blistein

Jon Blistein

My Chemical Romance will tour North America for the first time in nine years this fall.

The reunion run launches September 9th at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit and continues through the next month, wrapping October 11th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. My Chemical Romance announced the tour with an eerie short film titled “A summoning…” that features music from band members Ray Toro and James Muhoberac. The clip follows a young boy (played by Marcos Garcia) with an interest in the paranormal and the dark arts, who tries to outrun a trio of masked figures, with many of the scenes seemingly corresponding to different eras in My Chemical Romance history.

Tickets for all dates will go on sale this Friday, January 31st at 12 p.m. local time on Ticketmaster.com . Complete information is available on the band’s website .

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After splitting in 2013 , My Chemical Romance announced their plan to reunite last fall. In December, they returned to the stage with a sold-out show at the Shrine Expo in Los Angeles. Rolling Stone ’s Suzy Exposito wrote of the show , “[I]t’s with this landmark concert that MCR ceases to be a nostalgic act, and proves its mettle as a timeless, rock & roll band for the ages.”

Prior to their North American tour, My Chemical Romance will play a string of international concerts this spring and summer in Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and Europe.

My Chemical Romance Tour Dates

September 9 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena September 11 – St Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center September 12 – Chicago, IL @ Riot Fest September 14 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena September 15 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden September 17 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center September 18 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center September 20 – Atlanta, GA @ Music Midtown, Piedmont Park September 22 – Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center September 26 – Sunrise, FL @ BB&T Center September 29 – Houston, TX @ Toyota Center September 30 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center October 2 – Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center October 4 – Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome October 6 – Oakland, CA @ Oakland Arena October 8 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Forum October 10 – Sacramento, CA @ Aftershock October 11 – Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena

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Rescheduled u.s. dates.

As a band, we are deeply aware of the profound problems and crucial issues the world is facing right now. These issues are all life-changing, and we have them in the forefront of our minds on a regular basis. All of our focus should be on making the world better in every way we can.  

We would never want to distract from the challenges we are facing right now, but we feel it is the right thing to let people know that we have rescheduled our shows, so that we can offer people a refund on tickets in these difficult financial times.

All tickets will be honored for the new dates. If you are unable to attend, refunds are available at your point of purchase. For cities with multiple nights, tickets will be honored as follows:

Newark, NJ - Prudential Center 9/22/20 > 9/21/21  9/23/20 > 9/22/21 Los Angeles, CA - The Forum 10/8/20 > 10/11/21 10/13/20 > 10/12/21 10/14/20 > 10/14/21 10/16/20 > 10/17/21 

All rescheduled tour dates can be found below.

It is a long time away, and there is so much for all of us to do to make the world a better place in the interim. We cannot wait to play for you. Take care of each other and yourselves. We will see you soon. 

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My Chemical Romance play final show on their world tour

My Chemical Romance’s incredible global reunion tour came to an end last night (March 26) in Osaka – so what comes next?!

From some incredible outfits to brilliant throwback performances and even a recent a cappella rendition of Cemetery Drive , My Chemical Romance ’s reunion tour has given us some absolutely amazing moments over the past year.

But now it’s officially come to an end, with the New Jersey emo heroes wrapping up their run at Punkspring Osaka on Sunday, March 26. And as is their lovably cryptic way, they didn’t make a massive fuss over the occasion, leaving many fans wondering what’s coming next.

Guitarist Frank Iero posted before the show “Tonight’s our (final) night Osaka” along with the words “the end.” and a picture of a cockroach – a famously resilient creature, so that could certainly mean something. Interestingly, too, by the end of the Osaka show their drum kit had “Endless night” written on it, whereas at the start of the gig it was just a black mirror.

Frank will be back on tour with L.S. Dunes soon, with the post-hardcore gang playing several shows including a stint on Sad Summer Fest. The good news is that the guitarist told Kerrang! in January that they do have more new stuff in their “back pockets”, while bassist Tim Payne added: “We never really stopped writing music. We recorded and then we got ready for shows, but it’s always just been, ‘Oh hey, I’ve got this idea!’ We’re always working on things and talking about music and art. Once we can really dedicate our time and focus to that and get in the studio, we’ll do it.”

But what else is going to happen in the world of My Chem? Let’s watch this space…

Read this: L.S. Dunes: “We didn’t realise how much we needed this band until we started writing for it”

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My Chemical Romance Add New 2022 North American Tour Dates

By Matthew Strauss

My Chemical Romance have added new dates to their 2022 tour. The new North American shows take place in August, September, and October. Find the group’s tour schedule below.

My Chemical Romance’s tour includes three performances at the new When We Were Young music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. The band has numerous stops in Europe, too, but will not be playing shows in Russia and Ukraine .

The following acts will serve as openers at various points on the My Chemical Romance tour: Badflower, the Bouncing Souls, Devil Master, Dilly Dally, Ghösh, the Homeless Gospel Choir, Kimya Dawson, the Lemon Twigs, Meg Myers, Midtown, Nothing, Shannon and the Clams, Soul Glo, Surfbort, Taking Back Sunday, Thursday, Turnstile, Waterparks, and Youth Code.

After breaking up in 2013, My Chemical Romance returned to the stage in 2019 . They had been planning a 2020 reunion tour, but had to reschedule due to the pandemic .

Read Pitchfork’s Sunday Review of My Chemical Romance’s 2003 album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge .

All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

My Chemical Romance:

05-16 St. Austell, England - Eden Project 05-19 Milton Keynes, England - Stadium MK 05-21 Milton Keynes, England - Stadium MK 05-22 Milton Keynes, England - Stadium MK 05-25 Dublin, Ireland - Royal Hospital Kilmainham 05-27 Warrington, England - Victoria Park 05-28 Cardiff, Wales - Sophia Gardens 05-30 Glasgow, Scotland - OVO Hydro 06-01 Paris, France - AccorHotels Arena 06-02 Rotterdam, Netherlands - Rotterdam Ahoy 06-04 Bologna, Italy - Sonic Park Fest 2022 Arena Parco Nord 06-06 Munich, Germany - Olympiahalle 06-07 Budapest, Hungary - Budapest Park 06-09 Warsaw, Poland - Progresja Scena Lethia 06-11 Prague, Czech Republic - Prague Rocks 2022 Stadion Sinobo 06-12 Berlin, Germany - Velodrom 06-14 Stockholm, Sweden - Gröna Lund 06-21 Bonn, Germany - Kunstrasen Bonn 08-20 Oklahoma City, OK - Paycom Center 08-21 San Antonio, TX - AT&T Center 08-23 Nashville, TN - Bridgestone Arena 08-24 Cincinnati, OH - Heritage Bank Center 08-26 Raleigh, NC - PNC Arena 08-27 Elmont, NY - UBS Arena 08-29 Philadelphia, PA - Wells Fargo Center 08-30 Albany, NY - MVP Arena 09-01 Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun Arena 09-02 Montreal, Quebec - Centre Bell 09-04 Toronto, Ontario - Scotiabank Arena 09-05 Toronto, Ontario - Scotiabank Arena 09-07 Boston, MA - TD Garden 09-08 Boston, MA - TD Garden 09-10 Brooklyn, NY - Barclays Center 09-11 Brooklyn, NY - Barclays Center 09-13 Detroit, MI - Little Caesars Arena 09-15 Saint Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center 09-16 Chicago, IL - Riot Fest 09-20 Newark, NJ - Prudential Center 09-21 Newark, NJ - Prudential Center 09-23 Dover, DE - Firefly Music Festival 09-24 Sunrise, FL - FLA Live Arena 09-27 Houston, TX - Toyota Center 09-28 Dallas, TX - American Airlines Center 09-30 Denver, CO - Ball Arena 10-02 Portland, OR – Moda Center 10-03 Tacoma, WA - Tacoma Dome 10-05 Oakland, CA - Oakland Arena 10-07 Las Vegas, NV - T-Mobile Arena 10-08 Sacramento, CA - Aftershock Festival 10-11 Los Angeles, CA - The Forum 10-12 Los Angeles, CA - The Forum 10-14 Los Angeles, CA - The Forum 10-15 Los Angeles, CA - The Forum 10-17 Los Angeles, CA - The Forum 10-22 Las Vegas, NV - When We Were Young 10-23 Las Vegas, NV - When We Were Young 10-29 Las Vegas, NV - When We Were Young 03-11 Western Springs, New Zealand - The Outer Fields at Western Springs 03-13 Brisbane, Australia - Brisbane Entertainment Centre 03-14 Brisbane, Australia - Brisbane Entertainment Centre 03-16 Melbourne, Australia - Rod Laver Arena 03-17 Melbourne, Australia - Rod Laver Arena 03-19 Sydney, Australia - Qudos Bank Arena 03-20 Sydney, Australia - Qudos Bank Arena

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My Chemical Romance: how the vilified band turned antipathy into triumph

MCR split but survived emo’s moral panic to leave a shining legacy for all outsiders – especially young people struggling emotionally or those who refuse gender binaries

W hen My Chemical Romance announced their reunion tour in early 2020 – the band’s first extended spell on the road in nearly a decade – they promptly sold out three nights this month at Milton Keynes Stadium (30,000 seats) and shifted 228,000 tickets for their North American tour in less than seven hours. It’s not an unusual state of affairs: before their 2013 breakup, the US four-piece frequently headlined arenas and festivals. The difference is that back then, they were unlikely superstars, misfits who inadvertently infiltrated the mainstream – now, they return to a pop cultural landscape they helped to define.

Led by vocalist Gerard Way , a talented comic artist who grew up listening to punk, metal and Britpop, they started off scrapping in New Jersey’s early 00s basement-venue hardcore circuit alongside bands such as Thursday. Their music took a darker turn on 2004’s breakthrough, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, an album influenced by the Cure’s gloomiest moments and the gothic-tinged punk fury of Misfits and the Damned. In the wake of that album’s success, My Chemical Romance (MCR) swiftly shifted gear once again. Driven by the UK No 1 hit Welcome to the Black Parade , a multi-part epic in the spirit of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, the band embraced Bowie-calibre shapeshifting, Pink Floyd’s grandeur and glam rock’s sledgehammer riffs on 2006’s The Black Parade. MCR’s final album to date, 2010’s Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys , was yet another departure, which drew on bratty punk, swaggering 80s rock and new wave’s colourful keyboards.

To the shock of many, the group called it quits in 2013 . In the years since, Way has been open about how difficult fame was for him to navigate, describing it as “extremely traumatic”, and has stressed the importance of therapy to his wellbeing. “I needed the last seven or eight years to process that experience,” he said last year. MCR also faced unique pressures on top of the toll of visibility: as the world’s highest profile emo band , they were at best frequently misunderstood, even dangerously misconstrued, and became the subject of a moral panic worthy of the days of Mary Whitehouse.

Way’s emotionally vulnerable, often raw lyrics made no secret of tough times. “The triumph of the human spirit over darkness was something that was kind of built into the DNA of the band from the beginning,” Way said last year . But parts of the media scapegoated this side of the band as the cause, not a symptom, of a burgeoning youth mental health crisis . In 2008, MCR were linked in the news to 13-year-old Kent girl Hannah Bond, a fan who died by suicide. Coverage of her death zeroed in on her love of emo music; one Mail Online headline screamed “Why no child is safe from the sinister cult of emo”, while another article on the same site called MCR a “suicide cult” band. In his inquest into Bond’s death, the coroner Roger Sykes concluded: “the emo overtones concerning death and associating it with glamour I find very disturbing”.

Arguably, the vilification of the genre put fans at risk. In 2007, hard rock and MCR fan Sophie Lancaster was beaten to death by a mob of strangers in Bacup, Lancashire, targeted, police said, because she was dressed in a gothic style. The following year, violence against emo fans spilled over into Mexico, where three teenagers were severely beaten in Queretaro, north of Mexico City. Speaking to NPR, journalist Ioan Grillo attributed the conflict to class differences and homophobia. “When you saw the marches, a lot of people were shouting very clearly the Mexican words or insults people use for gay,” Grillo said .

The emo-blaming reaction of the media drew outrage, and spawned protests from fans as well as a firm response from the band. “We have always made it one of our missions through our actions to provide comfort, support, and solace to our fans,” they wrote at the time , while noting they were “anti-violence and anti-suicide”. They said that The Black Parade in particular had “hope and courage” as a message. “Our lyrics are about finding the strength to keep living through pain and hard times. The last song on our album states: ‘I am not afraid to keep on living’ – a sentiment that embodies the band’s position on hardships we all face as human beings.”

No wreckers of civilisation, MCR spoke directly to the feelings of depression and alienation experienced by vast numbers of young people. Their endurance in the face of smear campaigns speaks to how urgently they understood their fans. And despite their melodramatic stylings, the band weren’t schlock merchants: they originally emerged as the horrified emotional response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “This broken city sky / Like butane on my skin,” Way sings in the early song Skylines and Turnstiles.

From these origins, MCR made mortality and radical honesty about uncomfortable topics part of their DNA. The first track on Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, Helena, references Gerard and his brother Mikey Way’s late grandmother amid a backdrop of guilt and self-recrimination, while I’m Not Okay (I Promise) is marked by a crumbling facade of bravado: their idea of punk rebellion was to admit that your brave front is actually a mirage. The Black Parade is a concept album about someone dying from cancer, and reminiscing about their life in flashbacks. Although serious, the album has moments of levity – as in Teenagers, a very apt song spoofing the way adults fear adolescents – that speak to the ups and downs of grief. Meanwhile, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys confronts capitalism and oppression.

Musically, too, the band were more complex than the “emo” tag suggested: MCR were classicists putting a contemporary spin on influences such as Queen, Alice Cooper, Bowie and Smashing Pumpkins. They also made explicit those acts’ flirtations with gender boundaries. Way drew on the early 80s looks of Duran Duran, the vampiric pallor of the Damned’s Dave Vanian and the androgyny of Placebo’s Brian Molko . He often sported severe black raccoon eyes or myxomatosis-red shadow, a platinum crop conjuring shades of 70s Lou Reed, or a cartoonish shock of tomato-red hair. Around the time of The Black Parade, the band members dressed in black marching band uniforms that were formal and stern, yet camp, too.

For Way, these theatrical gestures were a way to expand the limits of his identity. “I have always identified a fair amount with the female gender, and began at a certain point in MCR to express this through my look and performance style ,” he said. He namechecked figures such as Freddie Mercury, Bowie, Iggy Pop and T-Rex, adding: “Masculinity to me has always made me feel like it wasn’t right for me.”

Flaunting heteronormative stereotypes was yet another thing that made MCR an easy target for harassment. Once again, they used this unenviable position to advocate for those at the sharp end of such prejudice. On a tour supporting his 2014 solo album, Hesitant Alien, Way expressed his support for trans and non-binary people during onstage speeches. “I identify with trans people and women a lot because I was a girl to a lot of people growing up,” he later told Boy Zine . Expressing his femininity through MCR gave him hope, he said. “I want to make sure women and men and everyone in between feel safe and empowered.” In 2015, guitarist Ray Toro dedicated his solo song For the Lost and Brave to Leelah Alcorn, a 15-year-old transgender teen from the US who died by suicide and left behind a wrenching note. “Yet another young life gone because of not being heard, not being understood, and not being unconditionally loved for who they truly were,” Toro wrote on his website.

During the band’s absence, their stature and impact grew significantly – not least because popular culture caught up to their ethos of emotional vulnerability and boundary-breaking self-expression. Today, MCR are returning to a world where being emo is so mainstream that rapper Machine Gun Kelly released a song called Emo Girl and collaborated with Bring Me the Horizon, while Grammy-winning sensation Olivia Rodrigo is channelling Paramore and collaborating with Dan Nigro, vocalist-guitarist for 00s indie-emo band As Tall as Lions.

All of this may be a passing fad – but the alternative rock realm MCR left behind has expanded in their image: it’s a place where greater honesty, empathy and a willingness to understand mental health difficulties are flourishing, and in which boundaries of gender and genre are dissolving. The late rappers Lil Peep and Juice Wrld continue to have large followings thanks to their deeply vulnerable, personal lyrics. After two years plus of the pandemic, a crop of songwriters known for talking frankly about mental health – such as Phoebe Bridgers , Julien Baker , Lucy Dacus , Soccer Mommy and Japanese Breakfast – have elevated profiles.

Today, MCR’s legacy is arguably comparable to that of Nirvana, another group of scrappy underdogs who proudly identified with the outcasts. Both bands drew on underground punk influences for inspiration and spoke to the marginalised; both became cultural forces by accident. Like Kurt Cobain, Way is an outspoken feminist (and fan of riot grrrl ). These parallels weren’t lost on him. “I found myself in a position where I was obviously not nearly at the level that Kurt was, but I was speaking to a young generation of people,” he told GQ last year . “It doesn’t mean you have to play the fame game or the red carpet game or anything like that … Nirvana inspired us to reject those things.”

Declining celebrity and refusing to back down in the face of mass-media vilification allowed MCR to establish their own powerful stance, which resonated loudly with admirers who also existed outside what was considered marketable and acceptable by the mainstream. Not only has the world got kinder to the “emo teens” of the worid in the years since the band split, but being an outsider has also become highly sought after as a marker of cultural cachet. The victory lap is theirs to take: three cheers for sweet revenge.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email [email protected] or [email protected] . In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 . In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org .

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My Chemical Romance Kick-Off Long-Awaited North American Reunion Tour With 2 Super-Deep Rare Cuts

The emo icons hit the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City on Saturday (August 20) with a setlist that included songs they haven't performed in 15 years.

By Gil Kaufman

Gil Kaufman

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My Chemical Romance finally kicked off their reunion tour on Saturday night (August 20) at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma after nearly 3 years of COVID-related postponements and from the sounds of it the show was well worth the wait. With singer Gerard Way rocking Heath Ledger-style Joker facepaint, the band launched into their second phase with their comeback single, “The Foundations of Decay,” before playing the 2004 Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge b-side “Bury Me in Black” for the first time since 2003.

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According to Consequence of Sound , the super high-energy show included impressive drumming from new touring member Jarrod Alexander, whose kit was emblazoned with the appropriately grim MCR slogan message “BIG DEATH ENERGY.” The set also included another rarely played song, “This Is the Best Day Ever,” which appeared on their 2002 album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love , a track they haven’t played in more than 15 years.

The band’s first full tour since breaking up in 2013 was otherwise packed with plenty of crowd-pleasing emo ragers and fan favorites, including “Give ‘Em Hell, Kid,” “Teenagers,” “Bulletproof Heart,” “DESTROYA,” “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)” and “The Ghost of You,” which Way dedicated to a recently deceased friend and producer Doug McKean as the crowd lit up their cell phone flashlights.

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Operatic screamer Way also reportedly discussed some recent vocal issues that required a visit to a vocal coach and said he was anxious about how he would sound on the road. “My point us, thank you so f—ing much,” he said. “Let’s f—ing shut this place down!” And thus the band dove into a set-closing rush that included “Welcome to the Black Parade,” “Mama,” “Boy Division,” “Our Lady of Sorrows,” “Famous Last Words” and “Sleep” before returning for an encore of “Vampire Money” and their titanic 2004 single “I’m Not Kay (I Promise).”

After a one-off reunion show in Los Angeles in Dec. 2019, MCR announced a tour that was slated to kick off in 2020, but which was postponed repeatedly due to the pandemic. They finally hit the road in May with shows in Europe with their next show slated to hit Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on Tuesday (August 23).

Check out some video and pics from the show below.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by MCR 🇲🇽 (@theghostof.helena)

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My Chemical Romance: Your essential guide to every album

A thorough guide to every My Chemical Romance album, from their promising if raw debut to their high-concept final outing

By the time My Chemical Romance formed, something had to give. Generation X had grown older, wearier and, ultimately, more cynical. Grunge was dead. Nu metal was bloated. Commercial rock music was dominated by ‘The’ bands. A generation of disillusioned young music fans were left waiting for some new heroes to pin their hopes to. At the turn of the millennium, rock’n’roll needed a revolution.

More importantly, it needed someone to lead that revolution. Alternative music was in desperate need of some new figureheads. Somebody needed to make dark, aggressive, vibrant rock’n’roll that spoke to the people bored of the whimpering, safe and faceless music that was masquerading as alternative. 

Somewhere, in a downtrodden part of New Jersey, five friends were about to make an impact. When My Chemical Romance vocalist Gerard Way sat down with drummer Matt Pelissier to write Skylines And Turnstiles – a song which expressed Way's complex feelings in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks – it was the beginning of MCR as we know them. 

After recruiting guitarist Ray Toro soon after, due to Way’s open inability to sing and play at the same time, the as-yet-unnamed trio retreated to Pelissier’s attic to record Our Lady Of Sorrows and Cubicles for what the band now refer to as The Attic Demos . After hearing the demo, Gerard’s brother Mikey dropped out of college to join the band on bass and finally gave the quartet a name, taken from a book by Irvine Welsh – Ecstasy: Three Tales Of Chemical Romance .

Despite the rawness of their early gigs, MCR were determined from the off to set themselves apart from the usual ‘plug in and play’ ethic of their punk rock peers. “When we started this band, we all kind of had the feeling that there was something missing from the current music scene,” Gerard told Metal Hammer at the time. “We want to bring that stadium feel to those small places.” 

This ambition impressed Thursday frontman and fellow New Jersey resident Geoff Rickly who, after doing some local gigs with MCR around Jersey, signed the band to his label, Eyeball Records. Now MCR were almost ready to launch themselves on the world, but there was just one piece of the jigsaw missing. On their first show they had supported another Eyeball Records band named Pencey Prep and their frontman, Frank Iero , had made a big impression. After his group disbanded in 2002, Iero decided to become a full-time member of My Chemical Romance – a move that would set MCR’s trajectory alight.

MCR only recorded four studio albums – and two live albums – before their split in 2013. But with those records, they captured the imagination of a frustrated generation and swiftly became a globe-conquering phenomenon. Their popularity only grew in the years following their split ; the hysteria that has met their recent reunion testament to their enduring legacy.

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Here, we go through those albums one by one and dissect MCR's influence and impact.

I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (2002)

And so the story begins. Crackling with youthful exuberance and by far and away the most raw thing the band ever put their name on, what Bullets lacked in the conceptual depth the band made their forte on future releases, it more than made up for in pulsating, electric energy.

After Gerard and original drummer Matt Pelissier decided to form the band in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, MCR’s inception was something of a whirlwind. Ray Toro joined to assist Gerard who, by his own admission, couldn’t play guitar and sing at the same time. The trio spent their time honing their attack and beginning to form the nucleus of their sound during intense recording sessions in Matt’s attic. 

Gerard’s brother Mikey joined the band, and in the aftermath of his band Pencey Prep’s split, Frank Iero joined the gang just two days before they were due to begin recording. If this all seems like it happened at a thunderous pace, bear in mind that My Chemical Romance had completed their line-up and begun recording an album within just three months of deciding to start a band.

Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly was a natural choice to produce the band’s debut effort, having already garnered a reputation in New Jersey through putting on shows by the likes of Glassjaw and The Movielife. He understood where the band were coming from, both sonically and conceptually – from eyeballs to entrails. “My Chemical Romance never had any interest in being cool – they were about doing something interesting and fun,” he explained to NJ.com. “If you were going to mock them, you were just feeding into what they were doing. They drew those targets on themselves. The detractors don’t get it.”

The sound of the album perfectly mirrors their story up to this point in that it’s pure chaos. Gerard may have gone on to master harnessing intensity in his vocal performances, but here it’s all wild-eyed insanity and frenzied delivery. The music itself shows shards of the avant-garde edge that would define their legacy but here it gets pulverised and has its lunch money stolen by thrashy guitars and up-the-punx pace, channelling the unstoppable, immovable passion the guys had for the band they had just formed. 

In perfect honesty, if you were to pick the finest songs from the band’s star-studded catalogue, very few tracks from Bullets would make the grade. But purely for its buoyant, juvenile charm and the excitement that crackles from every breathtaking second of its length, it’s one hell of a starting point for the MCR rocket ride.

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Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge (2004)

In 2004, bands were growing up. Court jesters Blink 182 ’s self-titled album a year previous had hinted at a more mature sound and Green Day were about to blow the whole thing sky high by trading two-minute slacker anthems about masturbation and not wanting to tidy your room for the sprawling, epic, anti-war rock opera American Idiot . Popular music was primed for change. My Chemical Romance delivered it.

The hushed opening of Helena was an intriguing preamble that marked MCR out as a group of musicians prepared to experiment and take the scenic route toward pure rock fury. Its subdued scene-setting soon gave way to a deeply personal and heartfelt love letter to Gerard Way’s deceased grandmother. Despite its heavy lyrical content, it still kicked serious amounts of arse, the thrashing verses and breakdown groove of the chorus sating those who just wanted to bang their heads.

Give ’Em Hell, Kid and To The End follow in a much more straightforward punk-rock vein, all urgency and blazing power chords, yet are characterised by Gerard’s bitter and wounded prose. You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison tries to restrain itself and allows Gerard to wallow in his own fears, but, like Animal in The Muppets going crazy on his drums, MCR can’t keep the subdued gothic shoegazing up for long. Just as the chorus is about to kick in, the band detonate in exhilarating fashion.

Then there comes the song with which My Chemical Romance captured the hearts of so many. I’m Not Okay (I Promise) is a genuine anthem for the disaffected, still sounding as righteously pissed off and fresh as it did almost a decade ago. For all their future success, it’s this moment that turned My Chemical Romance from a band to a cult and is arguably the four minutes that have come to define them.

Three Cheers... was an original, inspiring and youthful collection of dark punk-rock anthems that showed as many glimpses of instantaneous pop as it did the wildly lavish pomp and ceremony that would come to characterise the oncoming juggernaut that was The Black Parade . And although that may be the album most identify them with,  Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge still stands as My Chemical Romance’s masterpiece.

Life On The Murder Scene (2006)

This collection begins with a mixed bag of a live album from the Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge era. The material captured at the MTV $2 Bill and Starland concerts perfectly captures the kind of live band MCR were at that point in time. Even 15 years after its release, these performances still seem dangerous and beautifully ramshackle – it feels like they could derail at any time, but never do. These songs would be considered art punk for their viciousness and sheer edge alone, if it wasn’t for the fact that the melodies are pure pop (im)perfection. 

The AOL sessions are a lot more controlled and feel meek in comparison, and you have to question why they were included on the audio portion of this collection. A band can never truly recreate the mayhem of a live show in a sterile studio, and that really shows when these songs are put next to the apocalyptic brilliance of the tracks that preceded them.

Faring much better were the two DVDs that came along with the live album. The first disc shows the workings of a band from inside the belly of the beast as they capture the hearts and minds of a generation. From the earliest days to becoming a once-in-a-lifetime band, the documentary footage is breathtaking, as are the live performances and stunning videos from the Three Cheers... era, which are captured on Disc 2. Quite simply, these DVDs are essential for any MCR aficionado.

The Black Parade (2006)

Avant-garde and daring,  Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge  may be My Chemical Romance's greatest collection of songs. But it was the fearless approach to song, storytelling and imagery on  The Black Parade  that transformed My Chemical Romance from being just a band that write great songs to a global phenomenon.

Their image changed drastically as they shifted from the vampire-punk guise of  Three Cheers...  to a look that amalgamated the gothic chic of Tim Burton and the military look of  Sgt. Pepper ; a look that was copied the world over to the point that you couldn’t walk down your local high street without seeing a representative of The Black Parade.  Gerard Way ’s hair was bleached blond to give the appearance of a sick patient receiving chemotherapy, which fitted perfectly into the conceptual narrative of the album itself.

The story surrounds the afterlife of a character named ‘The Patient’ and how, after his death, he is whisked back to the biggest event of his life, in this case The Black Parade (visually depicted beautifully by Samuel Bayer in the video for  Welcome To The Black Parade  – see below for more on that). It harks back to the epic storytelling of  Pink Floyd ’s masterpiece  The Wall  and the chimeric, otherworldly excellence of  David Bowie ’s  Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars .

Despite the high concept, however, it was musically that My Chemical Romance made their gutsiest leaps of all. 

From the obvious influence of  Queen  to more left-field leanings like the anarchic swing of House Of Wolves and the appearance of Liza Minnelli on  Mama , it was a visionary move that put them continents ahead of their peers. The balladry on  I Don’t Love You  and the spectacularly melancholic  Cancer  remain truly moving,  This Is How I Disappear  and  Dead!  are as propulsive and powerful as they are expansive and experimental, and  Welcome To The Black Parade  – a Number One single in the UK, no less – contains more ideas in one magnum opus than most bands manage in a career. Hell, there really isn’t a moment on the whole album that isn’t captivating.

The lyrical couplets throughout the album are something else. From the defiance of ‘ I’m going to show my scars ’ on WTTBP to the powerful ‘ I am not afraid to keep on living/I am not afraid to walk this world alone ’ on  Famous Last Words , Gerard empowered the outsider and galvanised personal strength and courage to overcome the trials of life. It was a theme embraced by an entire generation and that was hammered home further in their forthcoming rally against the misguided Daily Mail.

The Black Parade became much more than just an album. It became a way of life that changed the cultural landscape of the world. Fashion, public psyche and mainstream understanding of alternative culture were altered forever but, despite all of this, the legacy of The Black Parade will always be the outstanding music. 

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The Black Parade Is Dead! (2008)

How do you perfectly document something that continues to be arguably the greatest live rock spectacle of the 21st century? You can never do a show of that magnitude and splendour true justice, but filming it in front of 20,000 fanatical fans in Mexico City certainly is a good try. 

If the Three Cheers tour was menacing and malignant, The Black Parade ’s was all about theatre and majestic grandeur… all of which makes the audio CD a little bit redundant because the real treat on this tour – and consequently this package – is in the visuals. 

Gerard fully embraces the Freddie Mercury school of showmanship, hamming up every last second with triumphant gestures and OTT grandiosity. The highlight of this is the frontman’s arrival during The End , appearing in a hospital bed, on a drip, before tearing off his dressing gown to reveal his Black Parade uniform. 

The band themselves, united as an army in their Black Parade regalia, reveal one of rock’s all-time most iconic looks. That this collection also captures the last show the band would ever perform as The Black Parade adds an extra dimension to an already dramatic performance.

Best of all is the limited-edition, coffin-shaped box set of the package that included a death certificate and a mask designed by one of the band members themselves. This highly collectable edition sold out almost instantly when it was first released, and now goes for around £250 on eBay on the rare occasions it rears its head. Good luck finding one…

Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys (2010)

There’s little doubt that My Chemical Romance would have felt at least some pressure going into the recording process for their fourth full-length album. With their previous two efforts they had released the record that broke them into the public consciousness, and followed it up with one that catapulted them into stadia across the globe, transforming them from a mere band into a worldwide phenomenon. As far as high-water marks go, theirs was nearly causing a flood warning. 

That cauldron of anticipation ultimately led the Chems to a surfeit of songs. The writing process yielded dozens of tunes which were eventually deemed unsuitable and scrapped, with the band admitting they felt, for a while at least, unsure of what direction to move in. The turning point in Danger Days ’ creative gestation seems to have come with the composition of first single Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) , which summed up everything Gerard Way felt about what they had produced for their new opus thus far: it was adequate but totally disposable.

From that point on, MCR cut completely loose, indulging both their more left-field musical influences and their wildest imaginations to create something unique and compelling in its vibrancy. To that end, Danger Days is a concept album which focuses around a gang of four vigilantes living in the desert around the fictitious Battery City in post-apocalyptic California. That the band members each play their own character in this tale (Gerard Way as Party Poison, Ray Toro as Jet Star, Frank Iero as Fun Ghoul and Mikey Way as Kobra Kid) is remarkable enough, but the level of detail invested into the narrative arc of the album is quite astonishing. 

From the videos to the website for the evil Better Living Industries that the band are trying to overthrow, to a limited-edition EP featuring the music the gang would listen to in their signature Pontiac, the effort is painstaking and the effect immersive. Lyrically, too, the whole of Danger Days concerns the Killjoys’ struggle and deals in metaphor with social, artistic and even political woes. As far as pushing a storyline goes, it’s hard to think of a more committed or complete record from the last two decades. 

But it’s the musical departure from previous MCR efforts that stands out the most. There’s none of the hushed cemetery vaudeville of The Black Parade here, and from the Stooges-esque riff of Na Na Na to the sweeping chorus of SING , to the messy punk’n’roll of Vampire Money , this is an unmistakably upbeat record. The overtones of garage rock à la The Hives are merged with the pumping punk of songs like Planetary (GO!) to produce something shot through with stunning pop sensibility. 

Plenty of critics were baffled at the time by MCR’s determination to change seemingly everything about themselves with Danger Days , but looking back now, it seems totally in keeping with the band’s nature to flip the script and keep us all guessing. They always did it their way and this final full-length of theirs is perhaps the ultimate evidence of that. Red hair, ray guns and rollicking great tunes – ignore this album at your peril. 

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