CALGARY - My Chemical Romance knows how to create quite the spectacle.

As The Black Parade -- both the title of their latest concept album and the group's alter ego -- the New Jersey emo-rockers delivered a killer rock-opera show at the 'Dome last night.

It started with the loud beeping sound of a heart monitor and singer Gerard Way being wheeled onto the stage on a hospital gurney.

As the lights came up, the frontman, with jet black hair and white paint covering his face, ripped off the bed sheet covering him, revealing a morbid black and silver skin-tight band uniform.

Backed by a band of clones, he broke into The Black Parade's intro track, The End, followed by the entire disc, which tells the story of a dying cancer patient who takes stock of his life.

Tackling such a sensitive issue in a rock show isn't the easiest challenge, but My Chemical Romance pulled it off by turning the dread of death into an oddly entertaining celebration of life.

As roughly 7,000 enthusiastic fans looked on, they put on an over-the-top theatre production reminiscent of something created by David Bowie or Queen in the 1970s.

Highlights included House of Wolves, Teenagers and Mama, during which Way, bathed in a blood-red spotlight, marched the stage looking like an evil wind-up toy as fire blasts went off around him.

Other effects included ticker-tape confetti, which rained down during Welcome to The Black Parade, showers of sparks and the sound of loud gunshots, heard sporadically during the concert.

After ripping through The Black Parade's 13 tracks in record time -- it took just under an hour -- My Chemical Romance broke before returning to the stage as themselves.

The next 30 minutes was basically a run-through of the tunes from the band's first two discs such as Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, I'm Not Okay, Cemetery Drive and Helena.

Splitting the gig into two parts was a smart move, as the first half felt more like a menacing Vegas show than a My Chemical Romance concert. Still with just 90 minutes of play time, when it was all over there remained a vibe in the arena of fans wanting more.

This, like the rest of the performance, was not an off-the-cuff decision, but a well-thought out decision made before The Black Parade was even cut, explained Way backstage before the show.

"I had some very specific drawings and the result is pretty much exactly what I planned," he says, adding their live show has been compared to Pink Floyd's concerts for The Wall, on a smaller budget.

"It is a very huge compliment. It means this is the kind of concert people are going to remember 20 years from now."

While My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade show was certainly ambitious and wonderfully creative, its long-term impact remains to be seen.