CONCERT REVIEW: My Chemical Romance Take Rotterdam By Storm

While typing this, I am still a little bit in disbelief. After years of thinking My Chemical Romance would never come back together, tonight we actually saw the band live for the first time ever. What started out as an absolute dream in 2019, had to wait until 2022 to really happen, but distance makes the heart grow fonder, because everyone in Rotterdam was ready and beyond buzzing for the return of the almighty My Chemical Romance.

On this tour, My Chemical Romance have not really limited themselves when it comes to the setlist, and tonight was no exception. The only thing we knew for certain going in tonight is that the band would start with their new single The Foundations of Decay, which – just like clockwork – they did.

After that, the Way brothers, Iero and Toro sent us on a wild goose chase, never knowing what’s going to happen next, but that is part of the fun. After Decay, MCR continued with a single from their popular album The Black Parade: This Is How I Disappear, which was being celebrated and sung back loudly, but then again, every single song was like that.

Throughout the tour, several recurring jokes have come alive, such as the fascination with rats, with Gerard Way calling out “rrrrrrrrrrrrats” multiple times during most of the shows. As a result, a whole bunch of fans in the front rows brought out pluche rats with one fan even bringing a pluche of Remy, the rat from Ratatouille, which got brought on stage by Gerard Way.

Alongside the jokes and the incredible setlist, throwing out one banger after the other, Gerard Way utilized his two microphones quite often, using the second microphone for a morphed, kinda creepy voice that was used on nearly every song throughout the evening. Many songs were spiced up live with screams, moaning (looking at you too, Frank Iero) during Destroya, or might I see excessive moaning, cause the studio version does already feature this and much more.

It is so beautiful to see how much fun My Chem are having on stage, comfortably playing through their songs and constantly looking for ways to evolve and entertain, such as Ray Toro playing guitar using a wine glass as a guitar pick!?

Tonight’s setlist heavily relied on three albums: Danger Days, The Black Parade and Three Cheers. I guess you could say ‘unfortunately’ only 1 song was played from the Conventional Weapons series, that song being the very popular and incredible live-sounding Boy Division. The ultimate throwback tonight was found in Skylines and Turnstiles, the only song being played from the band’s debut album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. Personally we were bummed out to be missing out on Sleep live, but what do you know, they closed their set with the (very) arguably best song from The Black Parade.

Bottomline, I could go on and on about tonight but truth be told, I am not nearly a good enough writer to actually do this show justice, so I’ll let the photos of the evening speak for me!

Check out the setlist right below and please, enjoy all the photos that Eva van den Bosch took on this exceptional night in the gallery at the bottom of this page.

Setlist:

The Foundations of Decay
This Is How I Disappear
Give ‘Em Hell, Kid
Bulletproof Heart
Boy Division
Helena
Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)
Teenagers
Summertime
DESTROYA
It’s Not a Fashion Statement, It’s a Fucking Deathwish
Vampire Money
Thank You for the Venom
Mama
Famous Last Words
Welcome to the Black Parade

Encore:
Skylines and Turnstiles
I’m Not Okay (I Promise)
Sleep

Glenn van den Bosch

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