After the Glasgow show, hundreds linger near the tour bus, hoping for one last glimpse of MCR. Grant Morrison, Gerard’s comic-book hero, is outside their dressing room, praising their ability to bring light from darkness. “You gotta embrace that stuff, and absorb it,” he says. “Steal it back, make it life-affirming again.”

And that, according to Gerard, is the real message of The Black Parade. “It’s that you can survive,” he says. “Life is very, very short, and you can choose to live it how you want. You can choose to dumb yourself down and not express yourself just so you can fit in, just so people won’t dislike you.

’‘Or,” he concludes, voicing what might as well be his band’s motto, “you can f—in’ live.”