Last night, American Rock band Evanescence brought their signature sound to Montreal’s Centre Bell, delivering a powerful and dynamic set that left fans frenzied and seeped in nostalgia.
The band, currently on the Evanescence + Halestorm 2024 tour, performed a mix of fan favorites and deeper cuts, showcasing the range and intensity that has defined their career.
Evanescence, which means “disappearance” or “fading away” (from the word evanesce, which means “to disappear”), was decided upon by the band’s two founding members : former guitarist Ben Moody and Amy Lee, the band’s iconic frontwoman, who was her charming self throughout the evening, interacting with the audience and reminding them to stay true to themselves and not let anyone change who they are.
Her passionate messages resonated with the crowd, adding a personal touch to an already emotional night.
Preceeded by local band The Warning : 7:00– 7:30 PM and Halestorm : 8:00 – 9:00 pm, the headliners entered the stage with a setlist that included tracks such as “Artifact/The Turn,” “Broken Pieces Shine,” “Going Under,” and “Call Me When You’re Sober.”
Throughout the performance, Amy had several brilliant solo piano moments that highlighted her musical prowess. Her energy was infectious as she performed alongside her bandmates (Tim McCord, Will Hunt, Troy McLawhorn and Emma Anzai), with each song building on the last to create a memorable concert experience.
Midway through the show, a video montage played on the big screen, recapping the band’s past 20 years of touring highlights, offering a nostalgic glimpse into Evanescence’s journey over the years.
EVANESCENCE singer Amy Lee joined HALESTORM on stage last night (Tuesday, October 15) at the Vancouver stop of the two bands’ joint Canadian tour to perform the HALESTORM song “Break In”. Fan-filmed video of the performance can be seen below.
In August 2020, HALESTORM released the official music video for a reimagined version of “Break In”, featuring a guest appearance by Lee. The new version of the track, which originally appeared on HALESTORM’s second album, 2012’s “The Strange Case Of…” , was recorded in October 2019 at a Nashville studio with producer Nick Raskulinecz, who had previously worked with both bands. The clip captured Hale and Lee delivering an impassioned studio performance of the track.
The updated “Break In” appeared on “Halestorm Reimagined”, a collection of reworked HALESTORM original songs as well as a cover of “I Will Always Love You”, the love ballad made famous by Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton.
Lzzy and Amy performed a quarantine rendition of “Break In” in May 2020 on Hale’s Internet show “Raise Your Horns With Lzzy Hale”.
Speaking about the collaboration, Lzzy told Amy: “What I love about dueting on that song with you is that it started out as as love song that I wrote for my significant other” — referring to HALESTORM guitarist Joe Hottinger — “but when we sing it together, it’s this act of unity, especially with the two of us being women and being women musicians. It’s like we have each other’s backs. And the lyrics mean something completely different when I sing it [with you].”
Regarding the way the new version of “Break In” was recorded, Lzzy said: “We did it performance-style, literally next to each other in the same room — from beginning of song to end of song, singing with each other.
Evanescence and Halestorm are joining forces for a Fall 2024 Canadian tour, featuring support from The Warning.
The outing kicks off October 15th in Vancouver, and runs through an October 29th show in London, Ontario. Along the way, the tour will hit such cities as Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Ottawa, among others.
Evanescence’s most recent album is 2021’s The Bitter Truth, while Halestorm’s latest effort is 2022’s Back From the Dead. Both bands have been working on new music, with Lzzy reporting recently that Halestorm’s next album is almost finished.
Evanescence and Halestorm 2024 Canadian Tour Dates:
10/15 — Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena *
10/16 — Kelowna, BC @ Prospera Place *
10/18 — Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome *
10/20 — Edmonton, AB @ Rogers Place *
10/22 — Winnipeg, MB @ Canada Life Centre *
10/25 — Laval, QC @ Place Bell *
10/26 — Quebec City, QC @ Videotron Centre *
10/28 — Ottawa, ON @ Canadian Tire Centre *
10/29 — London, ON @ Budweiser Gardens *
* = w/ The Warning
Halestorm and I Prevail 2024 North American Tour Dates:
07/09 — Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park ^
07/11 — Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Music Center ^
07/13 — Clarkston, MI @ Pine Knob Music Theatre ^
07/15 — Gilford, NH @ BankNH Pavilion ^
07/16 — Boston, MA @ Leader Bank Pavilion ^
07/18 — Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage ^
07/21 — Tinley Park, IL @ Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre ^
07/23 — Bridgeport, CT @ Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater ^
07/24 — Scranton, PA @ Pavilion @ Montage Mountain ^
07/26 — Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center ^
07/27 — York, PA @ York Fair ^
07/30 — Mansfield, OH @ Inkcarceration
07/31 — Alpharetta, GA @ Ameris Bank Amphitheatre ^
08/01 — Tampa, FL @ MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre ^
08/03 — Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion ^
08/04 — Franklin, TN @ FirstBank Amphitheater ^
08/07 — St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre ^
08/08 — Rogers, AR @ Walmart AMP ^
08/10 — Woodlands, TX @ The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion ^
08/11 — Irving, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory ^
08/13 — Denver, CO @ Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre ^
08/14 — Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater ^
08/16 — Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theater ^
08/17 — Las Vegas, NV @ Bakkt Theater at Planet Hollywood Casino & Resort ^
The rare video was filmed at Vino’s Bar in Little Rock, Arkansas back in 1999, and shows Amy Lee on vocals, former Evanescence bandmate Ben Moody on guitar, Stephanie Pierce on back up vocals, and an unnamed violinist.
The clip pre-dates any official Evanescence releases, with the band’s demo album ‘Origin’ coming out in 2000, followed by their debut studio album ‘Fallen’ in 2003. Some songs from those albums are performed in the clip, including ‘Imaginary’ and ‘Whisper’.
Amy Lee and co’s full one-hour-set is captured in the video, and while the sound and quality isn’t great – it’s pretty epic seeing Evanescence before they were what we know them as now.
John Furman, the uploader of the video, has even timestamped each individual song, so if you wanna skip to something in particular, you can. Check out the timestamps below, and have a watch of the 1999 video up top.
Amy Lee didn’t dream of being a rock star as a young girl. Her earliest musical influences came from the classical world. She was fascinated by her grandmother’s piano playing and the film “Amadeus,” and she dreamed of one day being either a classical composer or scoring films, as she told Kerrang!. Even when she discovered grunge and heavy metal as a teenager and started down the path to becoming the leader of Evanescence, Lee made connections between heavy metal and the classical writers she knew.
Still, she made the transition into rock and grunge, though she didn’t at first think of herself as a singer. Vocal performance was initially only an outlet for her poetry. For her poems, Lee drew on a darker muse than a classic film or her grandmother’s talents. When she was only 6 years old, Lee’s younger sister Bonnie died of an illness that left her physicians baffled. Lee was close to her sister and was devastated by losing her, but she didn’t want to compound her parents’ grief by showing her feelings. Poetry, and later music, became her outlet.
Lee carried that early sense of loss into her career with Evanescence. She’s identified two songs, “Hello” from the album “Fallen” and “Like You” from “The Open Door” as being about her sister. She’s also come close to tears discussing her sister in interviews and long declined to share her name, out of concern it would upset her parents or lead overcurious fans to encroach on her sister’s grave.
Evanescence scored one of their biggest hits right off the bat with “Bring Me To Life”. The song was Evanescence’s debut single from their first album Fallen in 2003, and it had vocalist Amy Lee a little worried.
In an interview with Triple M, Lee said she was worried about 12 Stones vocalist Paul McCoy’s guest spot on the track and how it might land the group in one-hit wonder territory. Obviously it didn’t considering Evanescence’s long career, but Lee’s concern makes sense – a massive hit from an album that’s otherwise not that kind of music can be difficult.
“The pressure was on immediately with ‘Bring Me To Life’ because our first song had a guest vocalist in it, and my biggest fear was that people were going to misunderstand who we were in the first place, and that it was going to be a really difficult thing to bring them along moving forward.
“Because, if you have a first single that doesn’t sound like the rest of your music, that’s scary. That can really put you in that one-hit wonder category, and that was really my biggest fear. When we were able to move past that, we had another single, and it was a hit. And then, we had ‘My Immortal,’ and it continued on and we’ve just had such an incredible fan base, so much support throughout the years, even when we were gone for years at a time.
“It’s just this beautiful thing. I don’t know what to say. We really do owe a lot to the fans. Also, I’d say, it’s something to not give up when it’s really, really hard. Because there have been times that have been really hard, from losing members to losing family. It would have been the easier path sometimes to just stop.”
A little over two decades ago, Evanescence scored a very rare hard rock hit on the Billboard charts in America. Their breakout single “Bring Me to Life” helped usher in a new chapter of rock music’s popularity, and it set the group up for plenty of future success. Many years later, Americans are still loving that tune. So much so, in fact, that fans of the band have pushed the cut back to the charts, helping it become a hit all over again.This week, “Bring Me to Life” returns to a pair of Billboard charts. The song has already appeared on both tallies, but as its sales sum surges, it finds its way back to a handful of lists.
“Bring Me to Life” reappears highest on the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales chart. On that tally, it sits at No. 5, entering the top half of the 10-spot ranking of the bestselling hard rock cuts in the U.S.Over on the Alternative Digital Song Sales chart, Evanescence’s smash is performing almost exactly as well. On that tally, it returns at No. 6. “Bring Me to Life” has topped both of those aforementioned lists in the past. At the same time that it reappears on both lists, Evanescence’s generation-defining hit is also on the rise on one other ranking. “Bring Me to Life” is up one spot on the Hard Rock Streaming Songs chart. On that roster, it improves from No. 18 to No. 17. It’s climbed as high as No. 5 before.
Evanescence have confirmed that they will be touring with Muse in Spring 2023 in North America. The shows will be 20 dates from February 25th to April 20th.
Pre-sale begins October 4th and general sale begins October 7th. Visit evanescence.com for more details.
NEW DATES
02/25 United Center – Chicago, IL, USA
02/26 Target Center – Minneapolis, MN, USA
02/28 Moody Center – Austin, TX, USA
03/02 Toyota Center – Houston, TX, USA
03/03 Dickies Arena – Fort Worth, TX, USA
03/07 Nationwide Arena – Columbus, OH, USA
03/09 Scotiabank Arena – Toronto, ON, Canada
03/11 Centre Vidéotron – Quebec City, QC, Canada
03/14 Bell Centre – Montreal, QC, Canada
03/17 Madison Square Garden – New York, NY, USA
03/19 Wells Fargo Center – Philadelphia, PA, USA
First prints of issue #2 from the Echoes From the Void graphic novel series, Revolution of Cassandra are shipping this week. If you haven’t purchased one yet, you can head to Incendium to grab a copy!https://t.co/5d4ZgUInm9 pic.twitter.com/TnuPI6K1v7
— Evanescence (@evanescence) March 10, 2022
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