My Chemical Romance’s “The Black Parade” was given the grand, theatrical, over-the-top presentation it has always deserved Friday night (Aug. 21) in Detroit during an electrifying performance in front of 37,000 superfans at Comerica Park.
It’s not that “The Black Parade” was ever shy about wearing its theatricality on its Hot Topic-T-shirted sleeves; the album boasts a guest spot from Liza Minelli, for crying out loud.
But Friday’s performance, in the city’s Major League Baseball stadium, was unthinkable even a few years ago — let alone when it was released in 2006 — and it represented a triumph for the New Jersey rock band and for emo kids everywhere, of all ages.
The album was presented in full, front-to-back, with a cast of characters on stage that made it part stadium rock show, part live theater experience.
The show transported the album’s themes of death and dying onto a stage that represented a sort of dystopian future-past in the fictional country of Draag, a bleak authoritarian regime, complete with creepy children’s shows, live executions, an all-seeing Big Brother-type overlord, and at least one guy running across the stage on fire.
In short, it heightened the drama of an already operatic set of songs that pulls equally from Queen, Green Day and Joy Division. And it allowed MCR frontman Gerard Way to let out his inner theater kid, which has always been right underneath the surface of his goth-punk persona.
This review is developing. Come back for more later.
agraham@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: My Chemical Romance goes full theater kid at Comerica Park performance
Reporting by Adam Graham, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Adam Graham, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
