When My Chemical Romance released The Black Parade in October of 2006, the album shot to Billboard’s number two slot in its very first week, further cementing the band as darlings of the emo genre. Four months later, the group embarked on a 36-date North American tour, with support acts Rise Against and Muse, carrying an L-Acoustics V-DOSC/dV-DOSC loudspeaker system for its sound reinforcement.
Over the years since then, the popularity of that influential record has remained strong, prompting MCR to revisit those songs on the road with its current Long Live the Black Parade tour, which will wrap its North American leg in mid-September before heading to South America, Mexico, Asia, and the UK in 2026. This time around, the band is carrying a much larger and more powerful system – a massive L-Acoustics K Series rig provided by Eighth Day Sound, a Clair Global brand – that can be configured and scaled for deployment at any of the major indoor and outdoor sports stadiums, arenas, and ballparks on the global itinerary.
“This is a loud rock show,” reports System Engineer Andy Fitton who, in just the past year or so, has worked on L-Acoustics tours with Madonna – including the 2024 Rio de Janeiro show where she played to 1.6 million people – and Vampire Weekend. “It runs 101 to 102 dB, and the mains are throwing 120 meters, or 400 feet, maintaining consistent tonal balance from front to back where we transition sonically between the main and delay hangs. To my mind, that is quite impressive.”
L-Acoustics Earns a Repeat Performance
MCR FOH Engineer Jay Rigby says he directly credits his decision to use L-Acoustics to Fitton. “When I took over mixing Vampire Weekend a couple of years ago, I fell into working with their System Engineer, Andy, and the K1 PA they had out. I was initially skeptical, but after the first show, it was hands-down the best PA I had ever been on. What Andy is able to do with both Soundvision and K1 is incredible.”
“On top of that, as this is a reincarnation of My Chemical Romance’s original Black Parade tour, which carried V-DOSC, I thought it would be nice to pay tribute, and keep it ‘French,’” he adds. “We have consistent results where Andy is doing all of the tuning and timing while I am on the flight to the next gig, and when I show up, I turn it on and we are show-ready. It’s been fantastic.”
K Series Delivers the Firepower
To accommodate the different venue configurations on the tour, Fitton’s system design includes two main hangs of six K1-SB subs over 14 K1 over four K2 cabinets each. “That’s the largest hang of K1 that you can deploy,” he says. Behind each of those line arrays there are hangs of 16 KS28 subs, configured in a three-to-one ratio cardioid array. Side hangs comprise 16 K1 over six K2, and, for venues where upper bowl seating coverage is necessary, the tour is carrying two additional upstage hangs each of 10 K2. Where delays are required, three to four sets of 12 K2 are available, while on the stage, one A15 Wide and two KS28 subs per side provide side-fill for the band. Up to 108 LA12X amplified controllers are used for the largest shows.”
“On the ground, we have 12 carts of three KS28 subs with a two-to-one cardioid ratio,” he continues. “We have an A15 Focus for front-fill stacked on top of each one of those carts. That gets wrapped and strapped together on custom carts and rolls in and out like that. Our PA crew has those carts ready to roll to the truck before I have my FOH drive rack turned off when we’re loading out. It’s crazy just how fast this PA system moves in and out.”
The tour has maxed out the line length of the main hangs to accommodate Rigby’s sound design, Fitton says. “His mix is all about the low-mid. Obviously, you end up with a lot of sub with an array that size, but for him, getting the low-mid to sit in the mix, especially with this band, is absolutely crucial. If you listen to ‘Welcome to the Black Parade,’ there’s a tom fill right before the chorus that’s my favorite part of the whole song. So just making sure that people can feel that impact, even if they’re 600 feet away from the stage, is why we went for that line length.”
The transition from the main K1 arrays to the K2 delays is completely seamless, Fitton says. “Panflex is an absolute godsend when working with delays. Being able to manipulate transition zones using Soundvision’s coverage and delay modes is a real game changer. It’s like having thousands of virtual measurement mics.”
“Our load-ins and load-outs have been flawless. It’s so easy to hang the K1, even with such large box counts. Our PA crew is led by crew chief Tristan Johnson, and PA techs Colin Dodds, Katy Ruggiero, Chris DiLeo, and Albert Lim do an excellent job putting the system up. I don’t think there has been a single incorrect angle the entire tour,” adds Fitton.
Soundvision is the Secret to Success
Fitton’s secret, he reveals, is L-Acoustics’ latest release of the company’s 3D modeling and prediction software, Soundvision 2025.1. “L-Acoustics has updated the calculation engine so you can look at how your mains and subs interact, how the low end propagates throughout the entire venue, and you can also look at more complex interactions between sources. Unlocking that feature in Soundvision is huge for me. I’m making full use of those new additions to Soundvision, like being able to see the frequency response at FOH, what people in those tough-to-reach spots are hearing, or the transitions between multiple arrays. We also use L-Acoustics’ P1/M1 platform to tune the system. It makes it so easy to collect a large quantity of data very quickly, and it’s a great tool for verifying the validity of the system deployment.”
Further, he says, “The import feature from Vectorworks [3D CAD software] into Soundvision allows me to have all of the scenic elements of the show drawn in. When I’m working with scenic designers, creative designers, or production managers, it’s so easy to visualize where things go, now that you can draw those detailed elements into Soundvision. Exporting my design to the new Soundvision Connect platform is a great way to share ideas with other stakeholders. And it just looks cool!”
For all the incredible theatrics on stage, sound still takes precedence, he reports. “Tour Director Jon Dunleavy and Production Manager Andrew ‘Juice’ Werlick are both bona fide FOH engineers; Juice earned his Qualified V-DOSC Technician (QVT) certification in 2004. It’s because of them that we’re able to have such a great sound system.”
“A huge amount of gratitude and appreciation also goes to Meegan Holmes, our longtime Eighth Day Sound account rep and maker of all things better,” Rigby adds. “Without her, this tour never would have been as successful as it is!”
A Solid Foundation of Education
All that said, “The boxes are the boxes, and we could talk about them all day,” Fitton comments. “But something that’s really worth mentioning, that gets to the core of my workflow, is the L-Acoustics education platform.” Fitton was doing grunt work in the warehouse when he first saw the K2 roll through. “It was love at first sight. I was like, ‘Man, I need to learn about this.’ I’ve gone through the entire L-Acoustics training program, from the in-person trainings to the online courses. I’ve seen every single online webinar. I’ve read every research paper that the company has published, which is really the secret sauce, because all of the underlying math and physics and research and development is there for you to read, for free. All you need to do is go look it up under the Education page on the L-Acoustics website.”
There has also been lots of in-person application support, he continues. “Application engineers like Chris ‘Sully’ Sullivan have really helped me out. Learning all this stuff from them has helped me unlock a level of system deployment with L-Acoustics products that has taken me from the basics of the industry all the way to these big stadium deployments, and all of their tools have been incredible to work with on each step of that journey.”
For more details on My Chemical Romance’s tour, visit www.mychemicalromance.com. Eighth Day Sound and Clair Global can be found online at www.8thdaysound.com and www.clairglobal.com.
