Gerard Way pays emotional tribute to My Chemical Romance fans who have passed away with a memorial banner

My Chemical Romance reuniting a couple years back and then releasing a new song last week has definitely brought back a lot of memories for fans of the band. Regardless of what you might think of MCR, the fact is that their music was a big gateway for a lot of people growing in the MySpace era and beyond.

For many, memories of My Chemical Romance elicit the same kind of feelings as bands like Linkin Park and other essential gateway, formative bands of our youth. It’s clear that the members of My Chemical Romance know the part they played (and still do) in this, as Gerard Way recently paid tribute to MCR fans who have passed away, on stage recently. In fact, it happened at the band’s show in Milton Keynes on May 19th.

The band’s reunion shows, which are finally happening now, were delayed multiple times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gerard Way paid tribute to the fans who were unable to be at these shows with a memorial flag, gifted to the band by a dedicated fan.

As NME noted, Gerard Way said this about the memorial flag:

“So this is kind of crazy, this is our third show, we’ve played two shows and I think it was the first night where we’re fucking around having a good time and I was talking about how it’s been two and a half years and how does it feel and things like that. And it occurred to me later after the second show, that there was a bunch of people that were probably gonna be at these shows that aren’t here with us anymore. And I think it was yesterday, a friend of mine told me that there were some people on the internet that had gotten a list as best they could of names of people that were gonna come to the shows.”

Gerard with the flag #mcrmk pic.twitter.com/tz0lN8QXHx

— swarm 🪰 (@24kviolents) May 19, 2022

Two years ago when @MCRofficial announced their shows, I couldn't stop thinking about mcr fans who have passed away and won't be able to be there, so I asked people across instagram and twitter to send me the names of these fans, and I made this memorial flag 1/2 pic.twitter.com/mQCM70XZx9

— emmy (@cemeterycure) May 18, 2022

Let’s be honest here, this is an absolutely class thing to do for any band. But for anyone who grew up listening to My Chemical Romance, the fact that they would pay tribute to their fans in this way is undoubtedly emotional. No matter what kind of music you might listen to, there’s no doubt that music is an emotional and healing property.