My Chemical Romance Keeps on Rockin’ at Bridgestone

If time doesn’t move fast enough for you, consider the fact that My Chemical Romance is on a reunion tour. 

Somehow, it has been 12 years since the theatrically inclined pop-punk troupe released its last full-length album of all-new material. In 2013, the band officially called it quits, but reignited the flame in 2019 with the announcement of a grand reunion tour that would start in 2020. Though delayed by COVID, it’s been back in full force this year, and tour stops have already spanned continents. 

The current leg of the tour rolled into Bridgestone Arena on Tuesday with support from a couple of younger bands who started to come into their own around the time MCR broke up. Playing first was Toronto’s Dilly Dally, a dark and intense grunge-schooled rock quartet founded by high school friends circa 2009. Following them was Turnstile, a Baltimore hardcore punk outfit of about the same vintage that has exploded onto the scene in the post-lockdown era. They’ve played progressively bigger shows in Nashville over the past year or so, and most recently sold out Brooklyn Bowl back in May.

While many of My Chemical Romance’s peers in the realms of punk, rock and emo have faded away in the intervening years — and the culture of toxicity that some participated in remains important to confront — MCR has stuck around like gum under a middle school desk. Chalk it up to their patented grandiosity, 2006’s catalog-defining rock opera The Black Parade serving as something like Sgt. Pepper’s for Aughts emo kids, or the band’s persistent relevance on the radio. Maybe it’s simply easier to revisit a gem like “Famous Last Words” than forgettable, copy-pasted screamo songs with lyrics that don’t live up to the title. (There are some things that one is glad to realize have vanished along with one’s old iPod.) In any case, MCR’s frontman Gerard Way — who’s now 45 and rocked a cheerleader outfit with aplomb — and his merry band of thrashers brought a high-octane show to the ’Stone, making it feel like not a minute had passed since the second Bush administration. 

The set list spanned most of the band’s 20-year career, kicking off with “The Foundations of Decay,” a new single the band surprise-released in May. The main set came to a close with a riveting rendition of 2004’s emo staple “Helena.” If you just came for the radio singles, you sure as hell got ’em. “Welcome to the Black Parade,” the hit that helped cement MCR as part of the zeitgeist in 2006, appeared in grand fashion near the end of the set, and it was a thrill to watch the entirety of the nearly packed arena collectively fall apart as the opening piano notes trickled out of the speakers.

Anthemic favorites like “Teenagers,” “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” and “Thank You for the Venom” were interspersed with deeper cuts like “This Is the Best Day Ever” and “The World Is Ugly,” a song the band hadn’t played live since it made a brief appearance in the set in 2008. For The Black Parade fans, the band threw out great renditions of the swaggering “House of Wolves,” operatic “Mama” and haunting “Sleep.” 

As rockers like The Rolling Stones have proven time and again, the best bands can defy the clock. When there’s another My Chemical Romance tour, it will not be a shock to see Way & Co. bringing an equal level of fury and excitement. Even as age reshapes Way’s vocals, he’s still got the showman’s attitude — and his band the gusto — to keep the wheels rolling for years to come. As we get older, we might not bang our heads as hard, and we might grumble a bit more about concerts ending close to midnight. But the electric zing of those songs that meant so much keeps bringing us back.