My Chemical Romance play 'Early Sunsets Over Monroeville' and reunite Gerard Way with Bert McCracken in Hollywood

My Chemical Romance wrapped their long-running 'The Black Parade' anniversary tour with a five-show residency at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, the city bassist Mikey Way calls home. Three of the nights carried the full conceptual production, complete with cheerleaders, a gunfight, a nuke and an assassination. The remaining two, a Devil's Night show on October 30 and a Halloween gig, were kept under wraps until showtime.

For those dates the band dropped the spectacle and let the setlists do the work. The centerpiece was 'Early Sunsets Over Monroeville', a deep fan favorite that had not been performed live since 2003. The Used's Bert McCracken also joined Gerard Way onstage for 'You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison', ending a 20-year feud between the two singers. During The Used's opening set, McCracken told the crowd, "Mom and Dad are back together!"

The residency arrives as the New Jersey band hits a career milestone: the reissue of 2006's 'The Black Parade' reached number one on the all-genre Billboard 200, setting a new record for the longest wait between an album's release and its first trip to the top.

Launched at the 2024 edition of When We Were Young, the tour moved the band from arenas to sold-out stadiums while extending the album's story night by night, adding new characters, an invented language fans decoded and a villain known as The Grand Immortal Dictator. With a handful of Asian dates still to come, the Los Angeles run also underlined the group's playing, from Ray Toro's solos to the rhythm work of Frank Iero and Mikey Way.