So I’m not sure it translated the first time we played it. It’s not like a lot of things you were hearing on the radio at the time. And we had not played this song as much as a band would like. “And we had all agreed, ‘Okay, we’re gonna play ‘Welcome to the Black Parade.’’ The first time we had ever played it, really, in a live sense was for the VMAs, and MTV was like, ‘Well, we have no room in the show proper, but you guys could play a song before the VMAs starts,’” My Chem frontman Gerard Way recalls. “The first time we played that song was an extremely awkward experience. Or on rare occasions, the song is a hit before it is played live, so the audience knows the song and sings along from the outset, as U2 experienced with “One.”īut no song in this collection had a more interesting debut live performance than My Chemical Romance’s 2006 anthem “Welcome to the Black Parade.” Typically, the song was played first before it was released, as Grace Slick detailed with “White Rabbit,” to an audience totally unfamiliar with the track. Most songs, no matter how big they become, have inauspicious live beginnings. 25 via HarperCollins), features the longtime music writer (and former Rolling Stone staffer) interviewing a wide array of music legends-from Carly Simon and The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson to TLC’s Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas and U2’s The Edge-about the stories behind classic songs that have reached anthem status. S teve Baltin’s upcoming book Anthems We Love (out Oct.

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