Gerard Way has earned praise for 'defying gender norms' after donning a cheerleading dress when performing live with his 'Black Parade' band at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
- Aug 25, 2022
AceShowbiz - Gerard Way was commended for "defying gender norms" after rocking a cheerleading dress on stage at My Chemical Romance's Nashville show on Tuesday night (23.08.22). Delivering the debut live performance of the studio version of "The World Is Ugly" at the Bridgestone Arena with his band, the frontman of the emo group wore the white and green dress with a W emblazoned on it.
Much to the delight of fans who took to social media to share footage of the special moment, the 45-year-old rocker was seen moshing along on stage. In May this year, the group surprised fans by putting out their first new music in eight years, "The Foundations of Decay".
Meanwhile, Gerard previously revealed that their 2006 classic "Welcome the Black Parade" nearly got cut. The lead single, which ended up being the central track of their LP "The Black Parade", was originally titled "The Five of Us Are Dying" and required some "reconstructing" before it became the "touchstone" for the concept of the record.
Speaking to mark the 15th anniversary of the acclaimed album last year, Gerard explained, "Originally, that song was called 'The Five of Us Are Dying'. We played it and we really liked it, and I had felt that we needed that one song on the record, that touchstone that kind of introduces your concept, and the lyrics and the themes of that song kind of embody the themes of the record."
"All the other songs had really strong themes and titles and things like that. But we didn't want to just give up on the song, so then I started to bring the concept into the musical side of things, where I was like, 'I want to call this ‘Black Parade', I want there to be a parade on the record', and we started breaking the song and reconstructing it."
Before they nailed the iconic opening piano notes, Gerard would refuse to consider the song because it was "about nothing." He added, "Once we re-approached it from the perspective of starting with a completely new introduction and a new way to start the song, it helped us fix the rest of it."
"Anytime it got brought up before we started breaking it, any time it kind of got brought up, especially by my AR, Craig Aaronson, I would just kind of shoo him away about it and be like, 'Yeah, that song's about nothing. I'm not interested in that one.' "
