For a while yesterday, it honestly felt like Welcome to Rockville wasn’t going to happen. The weather got bad enough that everyone had to clear out for a bit, with people packed under shelters and checking their phones constantly for updates while the storm rolled through. You could feel the frustration starting to build, especially knowing My Chemical Romance were supposed to be closing the night.

Their set ended up starting around thirty minutes late, but the second the intro to “THE END.” started playing, nobody cared anymore.

The atmosphere when the band walked out was ridiculous. Part relief, part excitement, part emotional breakdown before the set had even really started. It felt less like a festival headline slot and more like thousands of people finally getting the release they’d been waiting hours for.

They’ve been building this strange story and lore throughout the current tour, carrying on from the prequel-style ideas from the South American shows, and you could definitely feel that during the set. But honestly, even if you don’t fully follow every bit of the storyline, it doesn’t matter. The music and atmosphere do the work for you.

“DEAD!” came crashing in straight after and the crowd completely exploded. “THIS IS HOW I DISAPPEAR” and “THE SHARPEST LIVES” sounded massive, especially with everyone around screaming every lyric like their life depended on it. Gerard Way looked completely in his element the whole night too, chaotic one second, emotional the next, somehow making the whole huge festival crowd feel weirdly personal.

Then came “WELCOME TO THE BLACK PARADE”, and honestly, there’s probably no way to fully describe what that sounded like in the crowd. The second those notes started, everyone lost their minds. You could hear people singing from every direction. It felt less like watching a band and more like being part of something together for a few minutes.

One of the best things about the set was that they didn’t just rely on the big anthems either. Songs like “I DON’T LOVE YOU” and “CANCER” brought everything down emotionally in the best way possible. You could look around and just see people completely locked into the moment. Then “MAMA”, especially with the extended version they played, brought all the chaos and theatrical weirdness right back again.

The stretch from “SLEEP” into “TEENAGERS” and “DISENCHANTED” was probably my favourite part of the whole night. “SLEEP” felt genuinely heavy live, “TEENAGERS” had the entire crowd jumping again instantly, and “DISENCHANTED” hit way harder emotionally than I expected it to. There’s something about hearing thousands of people sing that song together years later that just gets to you a bit.

By the time “FAMOUS LAST WORDS” came around, the whole place felt completely united. Hearing everybody scream “I am not afraid to keep on living” after standing through storm delays and uncertainty earlier in the evening weirdly made the moment feel even bigger.

And then the encore just felt like pure celebration. “I’M NOT OKAY” was chaos immediately, “Na Na Na” and “BOY DIVISION” kept the energy flying, and finishing on “HELENA” felt perfect. Nobody around me wanted the night to end.

After everything with the weather, the delays and the evacuation, this could’ve ended up being a stressful mess of a headline set. Instead, it somehow made the whole thing feel even more memorable. Wet shoes, exhausted fans, makeup running everywhere, thousands of people screaming every word back at the stage, it was messy, emotional, and loud in exactly the way a My Chemical Romance show should be.

Words by Amy Showell

Photography by Steve Thrasher and Austin Cooper for Welcome to Rockville.