My Chemical Romance @ Coors Field

My Chemical Romance x The Breeders

08.27.26

The Breeders

The Breeders aren’t necessarily the first opening act you’d associate with My Chemical Romance, but they make perfect sense after a listen and maybe a cursory understanding of the band’s fascinating history.

The side project turned full-time endeavor of former Pixies bassist Kim Deal, The Breeders immediately struck me with their old-school alt-punk(?)-rock style that so clearly inspired artists like Laura Jane Grace and, yes, My Chemical Romance.

While the band’s aesthetic reminded you of all your favorite middle school music and art teachers, the music had a fun, loose energy that they clearly found just as fun to play as it was to hear. Frankly, it was a joy to watch them.

The Breeders’ understated but whimsical performance was the perfect appetizer to the whopper of a main course that awaited.

My Chemical Romance

It’s rare that a generation gets two seminal concept albums within two years of each other: Green Day’s American Idiot in 2004 and My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade in 2006. For you parents of millennials out there, imagine if Tommy and The Wall had been released two years apart instead of the decade you had to wait between them.

While I did get to see Green Day’s initial American Idiot tour, I unfortunately never got to see My Chemical Romance perform their soaring rock opera during their heyday, when I was a young boy (cue the high G note).

I did finally get to see MCR perform The Black Parade in its entirety at When We Were Young (WWWY) Fest in 2024. Not to be dramatic, but I would loosely consider that moment to be a religious experience. Seeing them again this year at Coors Field, once again performing The Black Parade, I wondered if this follow-up performance would carry the same emotional weight as WWWY.

Boy fucking did it.

To start, MCR didn’t just reuse the set dressing from WWWY. The added backdrop, props, and stage actors brought a new dynamic that tailored perfectly to the theater kids in the audience, of which there were many. Some were even dressed in various costumes that functioned as callbacks to every era of the band. (And let’s be honest, the Venn diagram of MCR fans and theater kids is pretty damn circular.)

As for the performance, hearing these songs some 20 years later hit the same as when you belted along to them in your room in high school, though admittedly with fewer high notes. While Gerard Way may not be able to hit those highs like he used to (neither can I, for the record), the energy in his delivery was conveyed all the same. As for the rest of the band, Mikey Way, Frank Iero, and Ray Toro haven’t missed a beat. Every note from the album was accounted for, with some flourishes and embellishments that kept the show fresh.

The lunar eclipse looming over the stadium was a nice touch, though I suspect not entirely within their control. All in all, it was a damn good show.

And they weren’t even done.

What made the night truly special was what came after the album’s runtime, when the stage crew set up a smaller stage that protruded deeper into the crowd and the boys came onstage again, this time ditching the theatrical backdrop and swapping the marching band get-up for t-shirts and jeans (and maybe a nice jacket). For the rest of the night, they were the stripped-down emo-punk band that they started as back in 2001.

You could forgive them for sticking to their more well-known pre- and post-Black Parade discography, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and Danger Days, but luckily, you didn’t have to. They sprinkled in some truly deep cuts from their first album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (a mouthful of a title), and their final album, Conventional Weapons, originally released as a series of extended plays.

From the elder emos to the kids donning their first eyeliner, the show truly had something for every age of the broken, the beaten, and the damned. Whether you’re one of the Kids From Yesterday or just now joining the Black Parade, MCR is here to remind you that you’re not alone.

And with that, my little Killjoys, go make some noise.