between-songs transcript (chicago, 29 august 2025)
Flipped my goddamn shit at the talk before the world is ugly. LOST (2004) reference by Gerard this is truly the best day ever. Anyways thank you to Gen @/lesbianjarjarbinks for being there last night and having such a clear steady stream for me to watch back this morning shout out to Gen. Under the cut 🙏
[before disappear]
[Gerard]: Hello Chicago! We are, how you say in America, The Black Parade, thank you so much for having us here tonight! Brought to you by The Ministry of Complimentary Reconditioning out of Draag, and the man who brought us here—none other than His Grand Immortal Dictator. Please, make some noise for him! He is a beautiful man, and Draag is a beautiful country! And we thank you so very much for coming out tonight. We are supported by, how you say, The Draag National Auxiliary Band, please make some noise for them! Very handsomely dressed! Now, are we ready to carry once more into the breach? My dear friends! Chicago!
[before i dont love you] [elexecution]
[Gerard]: Chicago! It’s about that time right now! Let’s see who the next lucky contestants are, over on The Red Circle. When you came in today, you got a sign, let me see what they might be. Think it was the red and black…right, this guy? Oooh! Delicious! Look at all those! Okay. Well, what’s your favourite colour, is it red or is it black? Okay. Doesn’t actually matter. What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna vote on these people here on this thing, if they live or die! Why? Because the Dictator says I gotta do this. Do I care? Not really. So. Nay means we don’t kill them, yea means we does. Who’s ready? Alright. At the count of three, everybody will lift their signs, deciding the fate of the prisoners. One! Two! Three! I think they got fucked out of signs. I still see a lot more red. Still see a lot more red. Oooh, [talking rapidly] what’re we gonna do, what’re we gonna do, what’re we gonna do, what’re we gonna do, what’re we gonna do… how about… roll! Ready! Aim! Fire! Beautiful. Beautiful. And a thank you as always for your participation in democracy. A gift now loved over the world. Beauty. Let’s see some lights. Let’s see some lights! Light it up! Ahaha. That was fast! I love it.
[before house of wolves]
[Gerard]: [howls] Let’s hear the wolves. And only the wolves in the audience, please!
B STAGE
[before venom]
[Gerard]: Please make some noise for Clarice Jensen. Please make some noise for the Draag National Auxiliary Band as well, that’s Kayleigh Goldsworthy and Tucker Rule, we’re very lucky to have them. They’re wonderful. And please make some noise for fuckin’ Devo. Holy fucking shit! Um, I got—I’ve actually got to meet Mark a few times over the years through mutual friends and he’s just the sweetest guy. You know, all those guys have just such crazy artist brains, they’re really fun to fucking listen to, and I remember playing ‘em for my daughter when she was pretty young, when they put like an album out when they had the blue hats? I love that song “Fresh”. That song “Fresh” is so good. Anyway, how the fuck are you? Alright, we’re My Chemical Romance from New Jersey, let’s fucking do it!
[before nanana]
[Gerard]: [laughs] How the fuck are you? This is truly a fucking Chicago crowd, this rules. I was just thinking about Fireside as well, ‘cause Frank just had a—other day, Mikey had a flashback of playing at Fireside Bowl. I don’t know who—if any of you people were at that, that was—that was really fun. I—that popped in my head because that night, I was explaining it to Lindsey too, I was like, ‘oh, it was awesome, like, during the show! Like, somebody just grabbed me by the throat and just fucking choked me, it was so awesome! I remember, I was on the ground, he was just fucking choking me, man!’ I was like, ‘but it was good!’ And, um. I don’t know what else I was gonna—so, yeah, we were talking backstage too, I’m just gonna keep bullshitting—I’m not, though, but, um, uh, you know, this is kinda—when we were getting changed and stuff, we were talking about how Chicago in America was kinda the first place that really embraced us. [indistinct] and we played a bunch of shows, and they got bigger and bigger, and it was fucking great. I remember all of them. It was so good. So, thank you guys. And, um, yeah. And a kid—Frank wants to put this song out to a kid who broke both his legs at the Metro. I remember know, he jumped off the, the thing, he broke both his legs. This one’s for you, kid! Alright! Let’s go!
[before the world is ugly]
[Gerard]: Hell yeah. Did you guys hear me earlier, I was like, ‘come on, everybody!’ It’s—that shit was so weak. Come on, everybo—you all, everybody! You all, everybody! I didn’t even watch that whole show. I know that shit, though. You all, everybody! Fuck yeah. We’re having a lot of fun. Thank you so much for spending your day with us. Uh, I think I remember right—we started writing the lyrics to this one, we were staying in Korea, we were staying outside of, uh, there’s this hotel with the most beautiful snowfall I ever saw. We were in, like, this modern-ish hotel overlooking like a castle, and, um, there was snow everywhere. It looked beautiful. This song, we recorded this one for Conventional Weapons, and it’s a song I really love. Um, it’s called ‘The World is Ugly’.
[before prison]
[Gerard]: Thanks so much. This is, um, one of the things we’re learning about football stadiums or baseball stadiums is they go up higher, and so, it looks fucking nuts when we’ve got another twenty, they’re sit—looks fucking incredible when you come out, uh, we’ve only done a couple on this, but when you come out to it, it’s a fucking wall. It’s beautiful. Hell yeah. You motherfuckers up there making it happen! Hell yeah. We got one for you off Revenge right now. We’ve only played it once on this tour. This is the second time.
[before scarecrow]
[Gerard]: I ripped my fucking jeans with that screaming we were doing. I felt that shit go ‘pop!’ Fucking jeans. Thank you so much. There’s fun ahead, there’s fun right now. Especially me. Another one from fuckin’ Danger Days. Here’s what I give to the world. Get into it! Hand up! Hand down!
[before cemetery drive]
[Gerard]: That was one of the most fun for sure we’ve ever played that song. Fucking awesome. It reminds me a little bit, this is completely—it reminds me I think of writing [indistinct] before the band broke up a couple years before. Can put Scarecrow there—nah, it was better tonight, maybe. At this point—Whatever! Uh, we wanna give a big shout-out to our crew who’ve been fucking amazing, and, they pull off wild shit like this morning, they built all this stuff today, ‘cause Oasis was here last night and they had an amazing concert, I didn’t get to go to it but a lot of the band did, and they just said it was fucking great, and we love them, that band, so, um, but they were like, ‘fuck, we gotta get all our shit up there’, and, um, but they’re really wonderful people and they all really—they all really, like, believe in this tour, it’s really fucking cool, they’re all—it’s kinda all of ours. It’s really awesome. ‘Cause it’s like, it’s pretty batshit and we’re kinda making it up every single day. It’s cool. So, cheers. Um, we got a song off Revenge right now. It’s called ‘Cemetery Drive’. Do the intro. Think we’ll do the intro. You count in, Ray.
[before not okay]
[Gerard]: Thanks so much. That song is really f—I—I really fucking pl—I remember playing that on Warped Tour a lot, the first time, and the second time we played. It’s just fucking fun. I got dried fake blood in my hair, sorry. Hey, please make some fucking noise for Jarrod Alexander and Jamie Muhoberac. They’ve been playing with us a very long time, and we always have a fucking blast with them. Fucking best guys. Great fucking players. Just fun. Let’s see what we got over—we got a summer jam now, right now, it’s the summer right? Alright, we should probably play it then. Alright, here goes.
[before boy division]
[Gerard]: Fuck yeah. That’s a lot of fun. I’m thinking about that part in the movie Elf, when he sees the Santa but it’s not Santa, he goes, ‘you smell like beef and cheese’. [indistinct] Shit. It’s a good thing I was taking a rest. This song’s off Conventional Weapons. Let’s fucking rip it, Jarrod.
[before helena]
[Gerard]: Motherfucker. We got a couple more.
[before bullet with butterfly wings]
[Gerard]: Fuck yeah. Hold on, I gotta get water on my left hand, ‘cause I got fake blood. Alright, I have something to say. So, fuckin’, um, so, um, Mikey and I especially, um, have a real history with The Smashing Pumpkins in terms of, um, just—w—where’s Mikey gone? In terms of, just in terms of, like, we went—he—he bought me a ticket to see the Mellon Collie tour, we saw that, and, it was like, fuck, we would—we would love to do this, this would be really fucking amazing, and funny enough whoever who’s doing our lights right now he was on that one as well when they had this crazy fucking light tower, and it was amazing. Um, anyway, so, you know, through the course of being in My Chemical Romance we’ve gotten to exchange nice words and stuff, it’s just been really awesome, but, we love being supportive of them and they’ve been, you know, really supportive of us. Anyway, so let’s fast forward, so now it’s like, um, it’s the pandemic, right? And I’m super sad, right, it might’ve been before the pandemic, right, and so, I come across this video, it’s late at night and I’m just kinda sitting, um, kinda sat alone—on purpose, though, you know what I mean? Like, nobody put me that way. But anyways, so, I’m watching, I’m scrolling through Instagram, and, um, I see this fucking kid in his room playing along to “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”. And his guitar isn’t like—you could hear—it’s not a great mix by far, and he’s somewhere in Europe, and it’s the string of videos, it’s not like edited in a smooth way at all. It’s like, fucked up. It’s awesome! But anyway, I watch this thing, and I felt the fucking light of Christ enter my chest. It was wild. It was golden and it was wild. I never felt anything like that in my life. And, um, this thing popped in my head talking about, um, I wrote it down on my phone, I don’t have my phone, we don’t—we don’t, we don’t need to fuck around with that right now. But it was, you know, this song, it’s the ultimate rock defiance to me. It’s like searing your imprint on the universe in pure fucking defiance. This is the best rock and roll song ever fucking made. Billy Corgan. The fucking god of rock and roll, would you please come up and do this song with us? This is wild on about a thousand fucking levels. What do we think?
