Long Live The Black Parade is a concert tour by the American rock band My Chemical Romance in celebration of their third studio album, The Black Parade (2006). The tour began on July 11, 2025, in Seattle, and is set to conclude on November 23, 2026, in Jakarta, Indonesia. For the tour, the band plays The Black Parade in its entirety, as well as multiple other songs on a separate B-stage set.
A theatrical-styled production, Long Live follows an overarching narrative centered around the fictional authoritarian country of Draag. It sees the return of the band's Black-Parade alter-ego from the Black Parade World Tour in 2007, who in the show are performing to appease Draag's leader, known as the Grand Immortal Dictator (played by Wayne Jay). Each show of the tour progresses the story, which is told through interactions between the band and multiple other characters, such as the Clerk (Charlie Saxton) and Marianne (Lucy Joy Altus). Multiple songs from The Black Parade have been given modifications for the tour, ranging from new sections and introductions, to extended outros.
Long Live has been met with positive reviews, with several journalists praising its production, the creation of a new story for The Black Parade, and the B-stage sets. The tour's political messaging, which is a parody of political authoritarianism, were also widely discussed; some viewed it as an analogy of real world politics. The tour has grossed over $122 million, with an attendance of over 800,000.
Background and history My Chemical Romance released their third studio album, The Black Parade, in 2006. It was supported by The Black Parade World Tour, which began on February 22, 2007, where the band would play the album in its entirety as the "Black Parade" alter-ego band. They played as the alter-ego until October 7, 2007, when they declared the Black Parade as dead and stopped performing as them. On October 19 and 20, 2024, My Chemical Romance headlined the When We Were Young music festival, where they performed The Black Parade in its entirety for the first time since 2007.
My Chemical Romance announced Long Live The Black Parade on November 12, 2024. Initially, ten shows across North America were announced, spanning across 2025, with most of the shows taking place at Major League Baseball stadiums. Most dates on the tour have a unique opening act (e.g. Evanescence, 100 gecs). Due to high demand, the band had to schedule a second date in Los Angeles after tickets went on sale. In February 2025, it was announced that the band would be headlining that year's Shaky Knees Music Festival on September 20, 2025.
In May 2025, the band announced a show in Mexico City on February 13, 2026, officially advertised as "The Black Parade – Alive!". A second show in Mexico City taking place on February 14 was announced a few days later. In June, the band announced a series of dates throughout South America. Dates throughout Southeast Asia were announced in July. In August, the band announced two shows at Wembley Stadium in London for July 10 and July 11, 2026. On September 22, 2025, the band announced a second leg throughout the United States alongside multiple other dates in the United Kingdom and Europe, specifically Spain and Italy. All of the new dates went under the title "The Black Parade 2026".
In November 2025, two final dates for the tour at the Hollywood Bowl on October 30 and 31, 2026, advertised as "Devil's Night" in reference to them taking place on Halloween weekend. In combination with the final three dates of the previously announced leg taking place at the Hollywood Bowl, the concerts make My Chemical Romance the first band to perform at the venue five times and were also intended to be the final dates of the tour. In December, the band announced that the Southeast Asia leg of the tour would be delayed until November 2026, making the last scheduled date November 23, 2026 in Jakarta. They also delayed the first show of the Southern American leg in Colombia from January 22 to February 10.
Promotion To promote the tour, My Chemical Romance released a series of teasers and trailers with cryptic meanings, sparking fan debate and speculation. On the day before the initial announcement of the tour in November, the band posted a teaser image on their Instagram page, depicting the skyline of a white city with pieces of confetti floating around, with the letters KCR arranged in a new logo. The post had the caption "If you could be anything, what would you be?". Several fans speculated that the announcement was for The Paper Kingdom, the band's planned fifth studio album that was scrapped before their initial break up in 2013.
When the tour was announced, the band released a trailer which features a dictator walking out onto a balcony to a cheering crowd in a white-colored dystopian city. The description of the trailer references the time that had passed since the last appearance of the Black Parade alter-ego, and made numerous references to a fictional dictatorship known as Draag. Other teasers related to the tour that were released included ones simply titled "Opera" and "Good Boy".
Production For Long Live The Black Parade shows, the band performs two different sets. For the first set, they dress up as their Black Parade alter-egos, performing The Black Parade in its entirety. Their outfits are updated versions of their original Black Parade uniforms. The set features a theatrical-styled production, with the band fully placing themselves into the role of the Black Parade while interacting with multiple other characters. The second set takes place on a B-stage, and features songs from the rest of My Chemical Romance's discography. Rob Sinclair serves as a lighting and production designer for the tour. According to Mike Shinoda, the co-vocalist of the rock band Linkin Park, the two bands planned to do a co-headling tour, but these did not develop further once Linkin Park learned that My Chemical Romance was planning Long Live.
In addition to the band's main line-up, the tour features several additional musicians, including drummer Jarrod Alexander, keyboardist Jamie Muhoberac, violinist Kayleigh Goldsworthy (who joins the band on "Cancer" and "Mama", specifically), and percussionist Tucker Rule. Other characters established for the tour include the Grand Immortal Dictator, the leader of the fictional country of Draag and played by Wayne Jay and watches the band from afar; the Gentleman, a ventriloquist dummy that the band met while in prison; Marianne, a guest opera singer played by Lucy Joy Altus; and The Clerk, played by Charlie Saxton. On certain dates, Marianne is replaced by another opera singer, Sylvia, who is played by Charlotte Kelso. The Dictator is also sometimes accompanied by his secretary, Veronika.
For the 2026 Latin American leg, the band were required to alter the tour production after they concluded that bringing the full Long Live production to the region was logistically impossible. For example, the band would've been unable to have a separate B-stage, which the North American dates had. As a result, Sinclair proposed that the Latin America dates serve as a prequel to the tour's overarching story, with a scaled back production.
Draag
The production for Long Live The Black Parade is centered around Draag, a fictional authoritarian country ruled by the Grand Immortal Dictator. Throughout the tour, several ministries of the country were either referenced or made appearances, including the "Ministry of Menial Tasks", the "Ministry of Complimentary Reconditioning", and the "Ministry of Operatic Relations". Draag's national anthem is "Over Fields", which the band later uploaded onto social media. In the description of the trailer which announced the tour, it states that the Black Parade alter-ego had its work privilege reinstated to celebrate the culture and accomplishments of the regime. The Black Parade's ceremonial title is "His Grand Immortal Dictator's National Band", and the performance of the alter-ego is solely to appease the dictator. The production is intended to be a parody of political authoritarianism.
The band's vocalist Gerard Way commissioned typographer Nate Piekos to design a language for the tour, to serve as the language for Draag and to be used on merchandise. The language is known as Keposhka. It contains more letters than the standard English alphabet, while certain letter combinations will lead to the creation of unique symbols. The language features more of these symbols than standard letters. The language is utilized in multiple aspects of the tour, including being used for the washing instructions on tour merchandise. A total of fourteen different Keposhkan fonts were made by Piekos. Fan attempts to decipher the language resulted in the creation of online tools for translating English to Keposhka, as well as a version of Wordle featuring exclusively Keposhkan words.
Song adjustments and live debuts For the main Black Parade set, My Chemical Romance made adjustments to multiple songs from the album. "Mama" received updated lyrics and an extension known as the "Dagger" section. Several songs received extended introductions and endings; "Sleep" and "Disenchanted" were both given extended introductions, titled "The Big Sky" and "The Button Pressed", respectively. A reprise version of "The End.", The Black Parade's opening track, was added to the end of the set and also features an extended ending. For the Latin America leg, the band added a reprise version of "Welcome to the Black Parade" to the end of "Famous Last Words" and created a new intro for "The Sharpest Lives", known as "The Eye".
Several songs were either played for the first time during Long Live, or for the first time in over a decade. During the B-stage set of the band's performance in San Francisco on July 19, they premiered a cover of the Smashing Pumpkins song "Bullet with Butterfly Wings". At the Chicago performance on August 29, Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins joined them for another performance of "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" to close the show. They premiered a cover of Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" on August 9 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. In their first night at Los Angeles on July 26, they played "War Beneath the Rain", a previously unreleased song recorded for The Paper Kingdom. The song was dedicated to the family of their past producer Doug McKean, who were attending the show. On July 8, 2026, during their first night at Wembley Stadium, My Chemical Romance performed a cover of Morrissey's "Jack the Ripper", for the first time since 2003. "Ambulance" was played live for the first time during the band's performance at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow, Scotland, on July 4. The tour also marked the first time that "To the End" and "My Way Home Is Through You" were played live since 2006 and 2008, respectively.
Concert synopsis
Main shows
Before the show started, wanted posters and various mock "rules" appeared on the show screen; an example of one of the rules is "reading more than one has written is strictly prohibited". The 2025 shows started with a recording of "Tonight You Belong to Me" (1956) by American vocal duo Patience and Prudence, while in 2026, Vera Lynn's cover of "We'll Meet Again" (1953) played over the PA system. The show opened up with Marianne, the opera singer, performing the National Anthem of Draag, "Over Fields", and requesting the audience to partake in the performance.