Each band did an entire playthrough of one of their most famous albums, “Bleed American” for Jimmy Eat World and the emo rock-opera staple “The Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance– the band celebrated 20 years of the album this year. 

“Bleed American,” released to radio on July 24, 2001, has been a fan favorite for almost three decades and was an energetic opener for My Chemical Romance. Top songs like “The Middle” and “Sweetness” thrilled the stadium, only heightening fans’ anticipation for the headliners.

The tension in the air throughout Chase Field was palpable in the minutes leading up to when My Chemical Romance took the stage. Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Frank Iero and Ray Toro appeared, and the stadium quickly erupted. 

18 years of anticipation exploded from the crowd as My Chemical Romance opened with the national anthem of Draag, the fictional country in which the story of the tour takes place. This was the band’s first time back to Arizona since 2008. 

Following the anthem was the official first track on “The Black Parade:” “The End.”

“Now, come one, come all to this tragic affair,” Frontman Gerard Way began. 

The story of “The Black Parade” follows an anonymous man, only known as “The Patient,” and his story through death and into the afterlife following a cancer diagnosis. The beginning songs of the setlist, including “The End,” “Dead!”, “This is How I Disappear” and “The Sharpest Lives” takes the audience through time before The Patient’s diagnosis and the moment a doctor tells him he has just two weeks to live. 

As a result, The Patient begins to confront feelings of worthlessness and realizes that it’s possible nobody will miss him when he is gone.  

The fifth and arguably most popular and influential track on this narrative album, “Welcome to the Black Parade,” takes listeners back to the present day, followed by “I Don’t Love You,” “House of Wolves,” “Cancer” and “Mama.” The Patient is on his deathbed and reminiscing on the fond memory of when his father used to take him to see the marching band in the city. 

The final tracks, “Sleep,” “Teenagers,” “Disenchanted,” and “Famous Last Words” explore themes of acceptance and transition and essentially describes the resolution of The Patient’s inner turmoil. After grappling with regret, past mistakes, isolation and judgement he ultimately chooses not to be afraid of Death. 

As the original tour cycle for “The Black Parade” concluded in 2007, the band’s persona was supposedly “killed” and gone forever. But instead of truly perishing, it is rumored to have been revealed that they were banished to a concrete prison-like location, called the M.O.A.T., along the Gubrick River and overseen by the tyrannical Grand Immortal Dictator of their nation of Draag. 

Almost 18 years later, after being brainwashed and conditioned, they are pulled out and now travel around the world, essentially serving as state-sanctioned propaganda artists forced to perform against their will.

In their performance, My Chemical Romance utilizes this dystopian, post-apocalyptic narrative to express the band’s real-life struggle with the pressure of their massive legacy, their original breakup as a band in 2013, and their symbolic “rebirth” as they shed their Black Parade alter-egos to return as their normal selves on the B-stage.

The audience was loudest at parts of the show that included a giant eye-shaped camera that came down from the top of the stage, took pictures of the band, then opened up to reveal a fake decapitated head inside that resembled Gerard Way; a man covered in flames stumbling across the stage, and a masked man who was wheeled out on a hospital bed under a sheet who then attacked and “killed” Way during their performance of “Blood,” a hidden track. 

The B-stage setlist was an array of their most popular songs from other albums, including “I Brought You My Bullets You Brought Me Your Love,” “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge,” “Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys” and “Conventional Weapons.”

B-stage setlist: 

1. I’m Not Okay (I Promise)
2. Boy Division
3. The Only Hope for Me is You
4. My Way Home is Through You
5. Helena 
6. Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough for the Two of Us
7. Thank You For the Venom
8. Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)
9. The Foundations of Decay

The tenth and final song on the setlist was a live debut of The Light Behind Your Eyes, a song that Way said was dedicated to his daughter. 

Despite the track having been released in 2006, it was not performed live until Sept. 6, 2026 at Chase Field in Phoenix. A dry eye was hard to find in the stadium by the end of the song, and the band gave a heartfelt farewell to the generations of Arizona fans whose nights were forever changed.