My Chemical Romance opened the first of three shows at London's Wembley Stadium to mark the platinum anniversary of their landmark 2006 album The Black Parade, and the review hails the concert as one of the most ambitious spectacles in stadium rock. The band framed the night around a new rock-opera narrative in which their black-clad Black Parade alter-egos, "killed off" 19 years ago, are said to have been kidnapped by an authoritarian nation called Draag and brainwashed into serving its government. The scale and theatricality of the staging are presented as evidence that MCR are doing more with their fans' ticket money than any of their peers.

The show featured two stages, elaborate sets and extensive pyrotechnics, and was opened by British alt-rockers Skunk Anansie, chosen by frontman Gerard Way after he saw them in the 1995 film Strange Days and praised for singer Skin's commanding presence before the roughly 90,000-strong crowd. MCR's set wove Black Parade tracks — including The End., Dead!, This Is How I Disappear, The Sharpest Lives, Welcome To The Black Parade, Mama and Famous Last Words — through satirical set pieces such as a sham election and mock executions, with pointed nods to US politics. The production escalated to flame-jets, fireworks, a stunt performer engulfed in fire and a climactic sequence in which band members are "dragged offstage or violently murdered", all with an hour of the show still to run.