ESSENTIAL INFO
The Black Parade is a 14-song, 52 minute concept album by My Chemical Romance released in 2006.
The story behind TBP features "the patient" a man diagnosed with a terminal illness, mentions an ex-partner of the patient's, and Death, which comes to the patient in the form of "The Black Parade" band.
The 2025 tour expands on the lore of the Black Parade world, which takes place in Draag, a fictional dicatatorship modeled East-bloc countries during the Cold War. At each show, the Dictator forces The Black Parade to perform the show, despite the lead singer's (or the audience's) pleas to the contrary.
The story progresses with each show of the tour.
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FAQ
«THE DRAAG ENCYCLOPEDIA»
BY CALLERBYTE
LISTEN TO THE BLACK PARADE ALBUM
The Black Parade (2006)
Reactions and Theories. Unorganized because I am FREAKING OUT.
ARLINGTON, TX 8/02
OKAY SO!!! Highlights from today's Arlington Texas show!
- Gerard was dragged out onstage by the clerk (guy who delivers the slap) at the top of the show. He gives him a little tap beneath the chin as if to say "chin up" and Gerard leaves his face skyward for a moment before touching his forehead like he doesn't know where he is or remember how he got there. Ray and Mikey, who the camera briefly pans to, are posing pretty still and gazing up and outward respectively. Frank appears sort of normal in the back, lmao. Here is a video of it, I love how the people nearby the person filming are just straight up screaming bloody murder
- Gerard's face was noticably more scraped up, including scratches/blood on the left side of his face in addition to the slap scars. Here's an audience angle + more high def!!!!
- THERE WAS AN EXECUTION SURVIVOR. THEY GOT A CAR AS A "REWARD"
- The car was a "2009 Baruva Dart" which as far as I can determine, is not a real car, but as this comment on reddit pointed out, does support the theory that this tour takes place between The Black Parade (2006) and Danger Days (2010), since 1) the car is made within that time frame and 2) presumably if you won a car in a contest or something you'd expect it to be a brand new car. HOWEVER i can see an interpretation where the dictator is like fuck you you survived here's an old ass decrepit car. which is also funny but less #lore implications so i'm going with the first
- The dictator had a cowboy hat!
- This post pointed out that Gerard still hasn't sung "tyranny" in "three cheers for tyranny" lyric of "Sleep" the whole tour, continuing today. Makes me wonder if they're hoping people will eventually be booing the executions/dictator/decisions rather than just cheering for the band.
- SPEAKING OF WHICH I think it's so fascinating that they're playing with audience expectations and concert conventions. I can't think of a single other band doing that. This post has gifs of Gerard reading to his puppet and turning the book around so the audience can 'see' which is just. SO RRRRGHGHSGSRGJRGJLJ OH MY GOD. this mother/band leader/state figurehead acknowledges the audience and knows we're there. includes us. YOU'RE CRAZYYYYYY!!!! WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN!!!!!! YOUR BABY GROWING UP ONSCREEN!!!!!!!!!!
- Tonight's slap and their reaction
- We are officially halfway through the North American Tour. Since this leg ends in September and the South America leg picks up in January for 2 months (x), I'm really curious how much time will pass in-universe between the legs. And then the Asia leg of the tour starts in April and goes into May.....what will have happened in between? Is this more of the puppeteering around of the in-universe band? Are they going to be really dead for a while and then come back? MUCH TO THINK ON. Also the fact that there was a survivor at the middle show, I'm predicting there will be more survivors at each show until they all get to survive at the last show. And the dictator kills them for real. or they kill the dictator. MAYBE THEY'LL DRAG THE DICTATOR ONSTAGE AND KILL HIM ONSTAGE.!!!!!!!
- Gerard's shirt is mended with red string at the collar. I noticed this either at my show or from LA pics I can't remember but nothing was close enough to get a good look at it until now. BUT LOOK!!!!!! IT'S MENDED!!!!!!!!!!
Tumblr posts I've collected from today's show!
LOS ANGELES, CA 7/26 + 27/25
They played DESTROYA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The band + the Dictator all had "Dodger Dogs" during the elexecution. My friend DJ Killjoy went to both nights so when we discuss I will update with more differences! I know it now very much looks like Gerard is wearing heavier foundation and the slap scratches are scarring over. He fought back before the slap on one of the nights and the guy in charge poked his eyes?? They also played a song off of their unreleased album The Paper Kingdom. (!!!!!)
Tumblr posts about the show: Night 1, Night 2, General LA posts.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 7/19/25
★*ੈ✩‧₊˚my show*ੈ✩‧₊˚★
The moment I realized at SF that Gerard had scrapes on his face from the Seattle show slap.........god I've never felt something like that. Christ. How does time work in this universe where the band is reincarnated/brought out for a show and then put away until the next one? How are they keeping them preserved? Gerard way my beautiful comic book character I love you so fucking dearly!!!!!!! Here's a video about how dazed he looks when he comes onstage. How he puts his hand on his cheek as if he's just been slapped and even (to me) still looks dazed when he begins the song. Gerard Way the creature you are......
I'm also so curious who the clown is? He kills Gerard, who is sympathetic to me, so I already don't like him. He's an extremist figure, and I'm not really sure what side he's on. The bomb has already gone off, so why does he need another?
I am so excited to learn more about the phone calls and everything. So fascinating. What did the dictator say to you. Are they going to kill The Black Parade's mom on stage in LA?????
How much more 'truthful' hostage information will we get??? How much more slapped can Gerard be?? Are we going to progress to punching? Kicking?? how horny can the people stand?? And this is a fucking. world tour?????? The lore implications of the extra dates....they're not allowed to die until the end of the tour sometime next year.....certainly no new album in that time......guys this is why we're not getting MCR5 yet dont worry
Although there is some evidence to the contrary (mentions of America/the US in the lyrics), I think a fun interpretation is that Draag is the country that predated the world in Danger Days. Atom bomb, dictatorship, killing people who disagree. It's all there. I think there is also mentions of "draag" in Danger Days?
I think the most emotional moment to me was when Gerard's voice shook while reading out the advertisement before Cancer.
I've also seen a post theorizing that the four people being shot under the hoods are MCR and it's a threat to The Black Parade what fate awaits them if they step out of line.
Interestingly, this show was also exactly 2 hours and 20 minutes.
By the way, I love how much of like. A Though Experiment this tour is. Like, it's not a movie. It's not a book. It's not a comic. It's.....playing pretend. It's theater. But it's not a conventional story structure. LIKE??????????? HELLO????? HUGE NEWS FOR NON TRADITIONAL STORY FORMATS EVERYWHERE??????? I really am obsessed with how Gerard said I have a world in my brain and I'm going to inflict it on everyone else. Via our album. Live onstage. Gerard I'm so sorry I said you were selling out I should have had faith. But I didn't and you proved me wrong.
8/3/25 update: Here is a post showing Frank & Mikey's reactions to the execution in Seattle and SF. At Seattle, Frank sticks his fingers in his ears, and in SF, he covers them completely. In SF, Mikey shakes his head, unclear whether in disgust towards the execution or the hostages executed. Here are some more/other angles on Frank from other shows!
Tumblr posts about the SF show!
Profesh SF photos!!!
SEATTLE, WA 7/11/25
This show introduced us to the world of Draag, Keposhka, the execution election, the slap, and the opera singer. It is MCR's longest show to-date, clocking in at 2 hours and 20 minutes.
8/6/25: Something I was curious about was whether every show had fake blood when the clown kills Gerard, and according to the video from the second to last slide on this instagram post from @heyitscaleigh it looks like it's been going on since Seattle! Here are some gifs by @rubbish78 on tumblr.
KEPOSHKA
Keposhka is a fictional alphabet created by Nate Piekos with direction from Gerard Way for MCR's 2025 Long Live The Black Parade tour. It is the alphabet used in DRAAG, on the rules displayed on the screens before shows, on the merch, and in during-show advertisements.
Nate Piekos released an article detailing the font's creation, which was un-published and republished on 7/21/25 with edits.
This translation guide for Keposhka is from jetblckhotelmirror on reddit and tumblr.
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As I've practiced, I noticed that some letters just fit together nicer than others. Since "MCR" fits together so nicely and is lowkey readable, and other words....look ugly LMAO...I thought it likely that they prioritized certain words looking nice over others during the creation of the font. And it turns out that I was right!
Since there's no standardized font yet for posting online, I am also curious how much people's handwriting styles will influence the development of differing styles of handwritten Keposhka. Or what shortcuts people are using to make the letters flow easier? I've found, for example, that the characters for "h" and "a" fit together well if stacked, but take up a bothesome amount of space if spaced out. I wonder if a standardized/fan-canonized handwriting will emerge since people might be learning from each other instead of the original article.
