Hollywood Bowl – October 23, 2026
Oh, how long ago I bought these tickets! I’ve been waiting for this show forever. In the week leading up to the show I found myself getting more and more excited. This was my first MCR show and I wasn’t sure what to expect (other than people singing along at the top of their lungs – I was pretty sure that was going to happen). If there’s one thing I do know though, it’s the Bowl. I took a different friend for this one and had him meet me at the Baldwin Hills bus because we all know it’s superior in every way to the Santa Monica bus. For some reason the bus driver chose to zigzag over to the 10 and then take the 10 to the 110 to the 101 and get off on Cahuenga. I looked at traffic on my phone and La Brea was fairly clear, so I have no idea why the bus driver would take this circuitous route. We eventually got there and then as soon as we got off the bus came face to face with the giant crowd. Everyone was just standing in the walkway not moving. I managed to snake my way through because I really needed to use the restroom. There were several merch tents set up outside the gate. We peeked, but did not wait in line. Mid Gate wasn’t open but the Bowl guy was directing people around to the other gate. I turned to my friend and said “Nope.” That gate is fine if you’re in the garden seats. Not so good for our section S because there are no escalators on that side and it’s a steep climb. Plus my friend was hungry and all the food options are on the Main Gate side. We slid in rather than walking to the back of the line. It always seems to happen as I approach the ticket takers that there is one standing there waiting for people to realize he’s there and this happened again on this night. We scanned in and then next to bag check they had tables full of red silk carnations and flags. Nice! I asked my friend what he wanted to eat and explained which choices were available on which level. He settled on a burrito and some ice cream. I had nothing and was honestly a little put off by the sign that said “soft serve burritos”. Ugh. Commas matter. We stopped for a cushion and made it to our seats with plenty of time to spare before the 8:00 show time.
The Bowl was jam packed full of people in costume or otherwise dressed for a My Chemical Romance show, as I suspected. What I was not expecting, was how nice everyone was. Like genuinely nice! Several people came up to us to pass around little pieces of red paper to hold over our phone flashlights at the appropriate moment (which was printed on the little paper). Someone came up to us with a bag full of handmade beaded bracelets and asked if we’d like one. I was worried for some of these people because of their skimpy outfits. It gets cold at the Bowl in October! The show did not start until about 8:40.
Okay, so the show. It began with a dramatization about the fictitious dictatorship of Draag. There was a “reporter” explaining that the dictator had taken over the United States and a literal battle on stage (including a dead deer). And then we had a blind opera singer take the stage and sing the Draag United States National Anthem which ended with fireworks – at the beginning of the concert. I looked all of this up after the fact and it turns out that it’s a continuance of a story line from last year. Who knew? I guess I should have done my homework a little better. So MCR took the stage as their alter egos The Black Parade and explained that they were performing at the request of the Grand Immortal Dictator. And then with much pomp and some fireworks and even some flames shooting into the sky, they performed the entire Black Parade album. As the show progressed, the other characters were brought back. At one point they killed the Grand Immortal Dictator and one of the other characters ended up strapped to a nuclear bomb. During Teenagers, the band was joined by the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. The crowd was fully into it. It sounded great too. I was impressed that I could hear Gerard Way over the crowd who was indeed singing at the top of their lungs. My friend commented on the way home that Gerard’s voice was a little tired and I said, “Yeah, but he’s old.” (We looked it up. It turns out he’s 49.) He did pretty well considering how gruelliing this tour must be.
They left a violinist on stage while they went back stage to prep for the second half and the sound guy really showcased the new sound system. They put in a full surround sound system earlier this year. They were panning that violin all around the Bowl. It was very cool. For the second half of the show, Gerard introduced the band “We’re My Chemical Romance from New Jersey.” and then they played songs from other albums. They went hard and again they sounded great.
Getting out wasn’t bad considering how packed the place was. There was a lot of stopping and standing in one place for several minutes as we slowly made our way back to the bus, but here’s where Baldwin Hills paid off because you don’t have to walk through the tunnel to get to that bus. I think we were part of the last few onto the first bus and from Section S, that’s pretty good.