It’s been 20 years since The Black Parade first stormed the barricades, but when 270,000 fans descended on Wembley Stadium over three nights to see My Chemical Romance recreate their macabre rock opera, it felt like no time had passed at all.
Let’s rewind. Long before their triumphant stint beneath the Wembley Arch, My Chemical Romance started in an attic in New Jersey in 2001, where Gerard Way, a Cartoon Network intern, was joined by his little brother, Mikey Way, friend-of-a-friend Ray Toro and, later, local musician Frank Iero.
What came next was a whirlwind of dizzying heights, including multi-million-selling records and international tours, peppered with addiction and mental health battles, culminating in the band’s eventual break-up in 2013.
Despite a small string of reunion shows and a surprise single, ‘The Foundations of Decay’, nine years later, the group kept schtum until November 2024, when they announced a worldwide tour celebrating their seminal album, The Black Parade.
Knowing the band would soon return to one of their most impactful albums sparked an insatiable excitement among the fanbase, and anticipation ahead of the tour was off the charts.
Music photographer Georgia Penny, who has loved the band since she was a teenager, hopped on a plane and flew across the Atlantic just to be a part of it.
“I went all in,” she laughs. “I first saw this tour in New Jersey last year – I chaotically applied to photograph it and got the approval through two weeks before – and I ended up doing Liverpool, Glasgow, and nights one and two at Wembley. It was just insane to give younger me what I couldn’t do back then and just live and breathe this band.”
She wasn’t alone in her dedication to the Long Live The Black Parade tour.
At the final London date, an intense, tribal atmosphere had completely consumed North West London. Thousands of people, dressed in all sorts of extravagant and gloriously gothic wares, had taken over Wembley Way to the point where a simple ‘jeans and t-shirt’ looked eerily out of place.
My Chemical Romance had been almost absent for 13 years, and yet there was still an unbreakable bond between fan and artist. So, after a decade of silence, how has this undying devotion endured the test of time?
Of course, the first place to look when figuring out this 25-year phenomenon is the music. After furiously peddling their first album out in a matter of months, and building a small but mighty fanbase, MCR turned their attention to their sophomore efforts in 2004.
Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge was the first MCR album that Tom Maxfield, singer and guitarist of emocore band Hell Hotel, picked up in his local hmv store, aged just seven years old.
“I feel like those albums – especially Three Cheers – have always found their way into any musical project I’ve done,” he reflects. “Most people grew up wanting to be Slash, I grew up wanting to be Frank Iero.”
Heavily influenced by their personal lives, particularly the death of the Way’s grandmother, Elena, the tonal shift from punky garage band to sinister, vengeful maestros took them to darker, deeper planes.
It wasn’t their first foray into death and grief, but it was certainly presented in a more appealing package. They leaned into the theatrics, creating show-stopping music videos for songs like ‘I’m Not Okay’ and ‘Helena’, and more digestible, polished tracks, such as power ballad ‘The Ghost of You’ and the pop-punk-tinged ‘Give ’Em Hell, Kid’.
MCR gave us a badge of honour to be different, and they told us it was okay.
In 2006, The Black Parade was unleashed, igniting a cultural movement that sent young fans into a frenzy. The tale of a man marching towards his death, confronted by a sea of memories and illusions as his last breath draws nearer, was gruesome, yet alluring.
“The conceptualisation has worked its way into everything I’ve done since I was 16 or 17,” says Tom. “The visual aspect of the band never overshadowed the music, it just added to it and, with how conceptual [MCR] albums are, the music videos and the visuals just add to that storytelling.”
It wasn’t just the concept that blasted the album into the stratosphere, but also how it was pieced together into a larger-than-life rock opera. The band pushed themselves to the limits in every way, cranking creativity, songwriting and production up to the max.
We’d never heard anything as grand as ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’, or connected with anything like ‘Famous Last Words’. And it was certainly many people’s first introduction to Liza Minnelli.
Georgia, who has been photographing bands for the past decade, was so inspired by the album that she bought every issue of Kerrang! after its release and fell in love with the posters, giving her the first taste of her future career.
“[MCR] made me want to pursue music photography, then I got to photograph them at their hometown show and the first time I got to shoot Wembley was for my favourite childhood band,” says the Southampton-based photographer. “15-year-old Georgia would never believe that!”
But it wasn’t enough to just love the music. You had to look the part; scratch that, you wanted to look the part. It was like a secret code, so when you passed someone in the street with streaks of red eyeshadow or a Black Parade jacket, you knew you were part of the same club.
“I always wanted to be part of their gang,” says Tom. “I grew out my hair and dyed it black because I wanted to look like Gerard Way, and I had the shaved sides and the big sweepy fringe like the Revenge era.
“After the Glasgow show, we had a couple of hours to kill and we went into the Modern Art Museum, and everyone was wearing an MCR t-shirt. As an adult, it’s hard to find that community, so when you’re just walking around and you have that moment of connection with someone you don’t even know, it’s a special thing.”
The visuals only grew with each album. Smudged eyeliner, military coats, black tutus, fingerless gloves – it all helped shape identities and a sense of belonging. In that way, MCR was always bigger than the music.
“Some of the most incredible friends I’ve made and some of the most amazing memories I’ve had have been because of [MCR],” says Georgia. “That’s something special. They have really soundtracked my whole life.”
Of course, the nostalgia factor can never be underestimated. That intoxicating hit of days gone by is why bands are constantly on a cycle of reunion and anniversary tours, knowing fans will always show up to relive their hazy youth.
Being immersed in those songs helps us connect with our younger selves. The version of ourselves that maybe felt lost or alone all those years ago is reminded, standing in the middle of Wembley Stadium, that they were never really alone.
“We were sold a future we didn’t get,” says 30-year-old Georgia. “We had an idea of what the future would be and we feel like that was missold. Now we’re all looking back at when we were younger and how much simpler it was.
“What [MCR] gave us was a badge of honour to be different, and they told you it was okay. I don’t think there’s an MCR fan who heard ‘Famous Last Words’, or ‘I’m Not Okay’, or ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ and didn’t have that lightbulb moment of: ‘Oh, it’s not just me.’ And that’s always going to be important.”
That’s why it’s crucial to not only go back and relive moments with bands we once loved, but also make space for new artists in today’s alternative scene. There are plenty of young people out there growing up in turbulent times, and they need bands like MCR to help them make sense of it all.
These bands guide people towards their place in the world. They save lives. MCR came to me at a time when I felt isolated, different and confused, and they gave me an anchor to hold on to. They made me feel understood, like I was wearing an invisible coat of armour that meant it didn’t matter if people picked on me, or thought I was weird, or didn’t ‘get me’, because these guys from New Jersey had my back.
It was like a secret code – when you passed someone with streaks of red eyeshadow or a Black Parade jacket, you knew you were part of the same club.
“I think there’s so many of us who didn’t expect to make it this far,” says Georgia, reflecting on darker times. “You’re forced to look at where you are now and look how far you have come, and it makes you give yourself a little pat on the back.
“To have listened to [Famous Last Words] in your room on your own, and then to be surrounded by 90,000 people screaming it with their whole chest, it’s such a moving and affirming experience. [MRC] are doing what they’ve always done: reminding you that you aren’t alone.”
“I think the Wembley shows are going to inspire another generation to go home and start bands,” says Tom. “Alternative music is having a real moment, and that is trickling down to smaller venues where people can have that face-to-face connection.”
Hell Hotel, which began two years ago in Brighton, sees Tom and his bandmate, Demi, go the extra mile to build that relationship with their fans.
“We have a guest book at our merch stand and people sign it with really lovely messages,” he says. “And our friends in [theatrical alternative band] The Howling have people showing up to their shows fully kitted out, doing fan art, all this stuff, and that feels a bit like when I was in the community as a young kid.
“We’re very lucky in Hell Hotel to be in an amazing community of such diverse alternative music. It feels like a really exciting time to be in this scene.”
He’s right: with bands like Sleep Token, who have a similar cult-like following, taking the world by storm, it’s certainly an interesting time to be a fan.
However, there are millions of people out there right now who need their version of MCR and The Black Parade to help them get through those dark, difficult times, and that still begins with grassroots venues and unsigned bands.
“MCR always provided a safe space and escapism from a world that I found a bit scary,” says Tom. “To give that to someone else would be the main mission statement of Hell Hotel.”
So, I went back to work on Monday after that memorable night at Wembley, my black nail varnish chipping away and eyeliner scrubbed off. I was back at my desk, replying to emails, but with a renewed sense of self bubbling away in the pit of my stomach.
MCR helped me find that feeling the first time around, and they’ve helped me, and Tom, and Georgia, and thousands of others, discover it again. It’s that sense of belonging that endures more than the music, the costumes and the concepts. It’s how we make sense of who we were, and who we are.
“MCR is a massive part of every facet of me, and it’s something I’ll always come back to,” says Georgia. “I just can’t imagine my life without them.”