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.
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
Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee has one of the most powerful voices in music. But it took a long time for her to feel comfortable using it.
“I’ve got to be honest, that came after I’d been doing it for a while,” she tells EW. “I was pretty insecure in the beginning; I always felt like I wasn’t that good. I started playing music with people in what eventually turned into a band when I was 13, and I was singing only because it was the vehicle for the poetry I used to write.”
Lee laughs as she reflects on being a “wannabe dramatic 11-, 12-, 13-year-old” who poured all of her emotions into those poems — along with her original dream of becoming the next Mozart. “I wanted to write genius symphonic opuses and impress everyone with my skills that I didn’t have,” she says. “I was kind of halfway down the path of realizing that that would be an extreme challenge when grunge hit and I started playing with boys in bands.”
Yet she credits joining choir in junior high as a major factor in her becoming a singer, a role she initially saw as “blending in” rather than standing out. It wasn’t until she realized how much people liked her voice that she gained the necessary confidence to bare her soul on her own. “The more I did it, the more positive attention I received,” she says, adding with a chuckle, “Ugh that feels so weird and insecure to say it that way! I don’t feel that way now.” [READ MORE]
Celebrating International Women’s Day with a very special playlist I put together. Listen exclusively on @AppleMusic https://t.co/J6ImBOyvnm pic.twitter.com/BJ2zhzbYXm
— Amy Lee (@AmyLeeEV) March 8, 2021
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