“We'll carry on,” sings Gerard Way on My Chemical Romance's 2006 album The Black Parade. It's a passage that represents a lot of things for fans: an appeal, a promise, a reassuring reminder that it is possible to face personal dramas such as depression and bereavement. Since then, themes such as loss and mortality have characterized The Black Parade they haven't stopped inspiring listeners. And today, almost 20 years after its release, My Chemical Romance will perform the album in its entirety on a tour that will touch 10 cities in the United States in 2025, the year in which Donald Trump will take office for his second term as president.
My Chemical Romance's Long Live The Black Parade Tour doesn't coincide with the album's anniversary, but will kick off just as the nation will have been ruled for six months by an administration that could adopt appallingly undemocratic policies. Obviously My Chemical Romance couldn't have predicted the election results, but the fact that they're remaking that album in concert at a crucial moment in US history will ensure that The Black Parade is placed in a context of uncertainty for the fate of American democracy.
Since their birth, My Chemical Romance have had a political character, their music was born as a reaction to a world in turmoil. It is known that Gerard Way started the band after watching the collapse of the Twin Towers from a pier in the Hudson River. The next day he wrote Skylines and Turnstyles. My Chem's music thoroughly explored the post-9/11 era, characterized by George W. Bush's global war and the disillusionment of many young people. Reviewing The Black Parade on Rolling StoneDavid Fricke wrote that «teenagers should be scared to death. They are about to inherit a hell on Earth that is more terrifying, day after day, than anything Way can imagine.”
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks and therefore also of the birth of My Chemical Romance, the band wrote on Instagram: “Today we are all older and wiser, but always ready to answer when we hear the call.” Well: the call has come. Adolescents and adults are scared and disgusted by the fascist future feared by Trump.
There are fans who celebrated online the fact that the tour announcement came a week after Trump's victory: «My Chemical Romance goes into hibernation when a Democrat is in power and awakens, like an ancient sleeping creature, when they sense the presence of a Republican,” wrote one user on X (the band hasn't released an album since Barack Obama was president). Another posted a screenshot of Way's 2019 interview Guardianin which the singer suggested that their 2013 split was partly because they were “no longer needed” during Obama's presidency. The world, at least that of emo-loving Millennials, is in dire need of a means to convey anger and discontent as it prepares to face a power-hungry racist criminal who will attempt to tear the Constitution apart. The return of The Black Parade it's the perfect soundtrack to all of this.
My Chemical Romance have kicked off the new phase with a series of promotional videos to launch the tour. In the first, the characters of the marching band with their characteristic uniforms, already seen in the sequences of Paradeare replaced by soldiers with uniforms and attitudes clearly inspired by the Nazi regime. It's a chilling image that cannot help but remind us of Trump's plans to strengthen his authoritarian rule.
The parallel between My Chem's new video and the future that Trump has outlined for the nation becomes even clearer in the long caption combined with the clip: “It's been 17 years since the Black Parade left the scene. During this time, a great Dictator came to power, ushering in the CONCRETE AGE, a glorious period of stability and abundance in DRAAG's history. His Majesty The Great Immortal Dictator wishes to celebrate our rich and glorious culture, fine foods and musical performances by welcoming you to these great displays of power and determination. Lending their voice and singing for the first time in 6246 days, after having been ceremoniously granted this privilege again, will be the National Band of His Majesty The Great Immortal Dictator… the Black Parade. Long live Draag.”
In another video, four men who look like dictators of various states sit in front of a woman who screams like a horror movie. Many fans on Reddit have speculated that it has to do with the plot at the center of the album, but it could also signal the release of a new album. Others have come to the conclusion that the characters in the video will be part of the My Chem concert, which will certainly be a high-class theatrical production. Whether it's new music or not, the idea of singing “I am not afraid to keep on living” in a stadium full of people seems more cathartic than ever.
Not that My Chemical Romance are saviors or martyrs. Way makes it clear in the album's lead single, Welcome to the Black Parade: “I'm just a man, I'm not a hero, just a boy who had to sing this song.” Many years later, Way and My Chemical Romance will not save us from the terrifying reality of the Trump presidency, but they will continue to react to the world around them with intelligent, compelling music that can soundtrack the struggle that awaits Americans and offer fragments of hope. The optimism with which in 2007, during the last year of the Bush administration, Way spoke to Rolling Stone has something poignant today: “The world can become horrendous or stupid, but I don't lose faith.”
From Rolling Stone US.
