My Chemical Romance kicked off “The Black Parade 2026” tour in Lima, Peru on Jan. 25. The tour was announced on Sept. 22, 2025 as a continuation of the band’s widely successful “Long Live: The Black Parade” tour which sold more than 450,000 tickets across just 10 North American cities in 2025.
Starting with the original announcement for the Long Live: The Black Parade tour introducing a fictional dictatorship known as DRAAG, My Chemical Romance has been using the theatrical stageplay featured in the first half of the band’s recent shows to comment on the U.S. descent into fascism under the Trump Administration.
The tour was initially announced on Nov. 12 2024, just days after President Donald J. Trump was elected for a second term.
The original tour spanned 11 nights throughout North America.
The first night of the tour on July 7, 2025 in Seattle introduced the stageplay featuring DRAAG.
The band starts each show with the national anthem of DRAAG and the introduction of “His Grand Immortal Dictator,” who was presented as a mannequin for the first two shows and then later replaced with an actor.
“His Grand Immortal Dictator wishes to celebrate our rich and storied culture, fine foods, and musical entertainments by welcoming you to these great demonstrations of power and resolve. And lending voice and song for the first time, their work privilege ceremoniously reinstated, will be His Grand Immortal Dictator’s National Band… The Black Parade,” the description of the YouTube video for the initial Long Live: The Black Parade tour announcement said.
MCR plays The Black Parade, a band touring under the Dictator.
The song “Welcome to the Black Parade” is performed, with lead singer Gerard Way singing the song as if he was giving a nationalist speech from a podium while showcasing fake propaganda footage. Given the nature of the stageplay and its commentary on current events in the U.S., this part of the show is a plea to the audience to reflect on our own role as Americans under an increasingly authoritarian state fueled by nationalism.
The biggest part of fan conversation when the tour started is the execution. During the show, four prisoners with sacks over their heads are marched onto the B-stage. Before the show even starts, fans are given sheets of paper that spell out “YEA” or “NAY” on each side to later “vote” if the prisoners get executed or not. At every show on the tour, no matter what the majority of the crowd voted, the prisoners were executed.
The execution is the biggest part of the fan conversation.
Asking the audience to participate in a democracy that doesn’t represent them sends a clear message. It doesn’t matter what the audience votes, in a state with one sole authority figure, an authoritarian leader has the final say in the lives and deaths of their subjects, and can and will back it up with force. Against the real life context of an increasingly hostile administration towards Black and brown people, Immigrants, and LGBTQ+, the scene hits closer to home the longer Trump’s administration sits in power.
Fan theories quickly arose as the Long Live: The Black Parade tour continued.
The most widely accepted fan theory across the MCR fanbase is that The Black Parade is stuck in a time loop and is being forced to perform for the Dictator every night. Each 2025 tour show featured subtle differences, suggesting that the band was trying to break free from the time loop and no longer perform under the discretion of the dictator.
The Black Parade Tour 2026 is believed to be a prequel of the storyline.
On the new tour, the band is dressed in replicas of the uniforms worn on the original 2007 The Black Parade tour. Fans quickly made the connection between the 2026 production and the theatrical production from the final show of the 2007 tour in Mexico City. Following the 2007 show the Black Parade is sent to MOAT, a facility for reconditioning.
The 2026 production includes Way performing “Welcome to the Black Parade” as if he was delivering a nationalist speech again, an eye like orb that hangs over the stage and delivers a doll known as The Gentleman to the band, and a gruesome murder scene at the end similar to the 2025 version.
Both send a message , fascism doesn’t care about your feelings. You may think you’re safe because you haven’t been personally affected, but it’s only a matter of time before the U.S. is even more of an authoritarian surveillance state than DRAAG if we don’t do anything about it.
You can see My Chemical Romance’s stage play on tour later this year, with the California stops of the tour being in San Diego on Aug. 30 and in Hollywood on Oct. 21, 23-24, and 30-31.
