My Chemical Romance review – ​fire! Nuclear war! Killer pierrots! This is stadium rock at its most monumentally madcap

Anfield Stadium, Liverpool
Adding eye-popping spectacle to this anniversary reprise of The Black Parade is fun, but what really stands out is the tremendous songcraft

My Chemical Romance take the stage to the strains of the Carpenters’ Yesterday Once More, its syrupy but heart-rending tones offering a reminder that MCR’s current tour is essentially about nostalgia: it celebrates the 20th anniversary of the release of the emo figureheads’ third album The Black Parade. An hour-long concept piece about a dying cancer patient, it was a band throwing everything they could think of at an album, apparently gripped by fear that the multi-platinum success of its predecessor, 2004’s Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, would prove fleeting. It variously sounded like pop punk, Queen, Britpop, glam, heavy metal, Pink Floyd circa The Wall and Kurt Weill, so wilfully overblown that when Liza Minnelli made a guest appearance on vocals, the listener scarcely raised an eyebrow.

The end result succeeded in catapulting the band to even greater fame and its reputation has only increased in subsequent years – in some quarters, it’s openly described as the Sgt Pepper of emo. A 2019 feature in the New York Times detected its influence not merely in the work of a host of subsequent emo bands, but in the oeuvres of pop and rap names such as Juice WRLD, Lil Uzi Vert, 100 Gecs, Billie Eilish, Melanie Martinez and Post Malone.
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