On 18 July, My Chemical Romance play Iberdrola Music in Madrid—their only Spanish date—on the twentieth-anniversary tour for The Black Parade. Before New Jersey's emo theatre takes over, however, the stage belongs to Mogwai. That alone is reason enough to arrive early.
It is a wonderfully strange pairing: Glasgow instrumental post-rock warming up for Gerard Way's theatrical rock. Two different traditions, two different ideas of the epic.
Mogwai come to present The Bad Fire, their eleventh album, released in January 2025 on their own label, Rock Action. The title is the way they refer to Hell in Glasgow, and the album came out of a run of tough years for the band. It was produced by John Congleton, the same guy from Explosions in the Sky and Sigur Rós.
Mogwai do not care how large their name appears on the bill. They have been doing this for thirty years, and their previous album, As the Love Continues (2021), became their first UK number one. It took 26 years—which says more about how long the world needed to catch up than it does about the band. Whoever they open for, the aim remains the same: scorch the mixing desk and leave the crew's ears ringing.
Volume is the point. You can sense it on record, but live Mogwai build long, delicate passages and then detonate them into a wall of sound you feel in your chest.
If you are heading to Madrid on 18 July for My Chemical Romance, be there when the doors open: the good noise starts early.