My Chemical Romance delivered a nostalgic surprise for fans over the weekend, performing a cover of Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 classic “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” during their Long Live the Black Parade tour stop at San Francisco’s Oracle Park.
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The emo rock icons offered a faithful rendition of the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness hit, with Gerard Way infusing the track’s angst-ridden vocals with his signature theatrical flair. The performance comes as MCR celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Black Parade, their landmark 2006 concept album.
The current tour, which kicked off earlier this month, marks a major milestone for the band and features a stacked lineup of special guests including Garbage, Death Cab for Cutie, and Evanescence at select dates. Next up, MCR will take the stage at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium on July 26, followed by additional North American dates through September.
The Smashing Pumpkins also took notice of the tribute. Billy Corgan and his band shared a series of TikTok memes on Instagram playing up the long-running fan joke about Corgan and Way’s uncanny resemblance. “For any MCR fans who may have come here from the cover of ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings.’ Yes Billy is equally proud of his sons :),” they wrote in the caption, adding a wink to the viral discourse.
Last year, MCR teased their anniversary plans with a headline set at the When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas, where they performed The Black Parade in full for the first time in years. The album — which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in 2006 and remains one of the band’s defining works — also spawned the Hot 100 hits “Welcome to the Black Parade” and “Famous Last Words.”
Alongside the tour, MCR recently released a deluxe reissue of their 2004 album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, including unreleased live tracks from a 2005 BBC Radio 1 session.
