|
|
| Evanescence - Astoria - 19june2003
I'd booked my tickets to see Evanescence over 2 months before the gig, and at that point they were not really known about, and I thought it would be a great chance to get good photos at a smallish gig of an up and coming band's first proper UK gig... BUT NO... they suddenly got really huge in a few weeks, tickets were going for £50 on ebay, and the Astoria was sold out... which meant that there were squillions of other photographers there, and it was blumin hard to get a decent photo as everyone was bouncing around. But hey :) The band that opened were called Speed Killers. There were 3 of them in the band, and all their songs were really fast and lively. The guy on the left of the (stage as you look at it) looked like Kris out of The Ataris. The next band were apparently called Span. Now they really were great. The songs had quite a lot of variation, the guitarist kinda did a crowd surf, the singer did a full on crowd surf, they played quiet songs as well as loud songs, and the crowd really loved them. And then finally Evanescence came on. The crowd went mad when she came on, and so did the photographers that were filling the photo pit. From where we were standing the vocals could have been a bit louder, but the music was brilliant. Every song just quality, and they were using a backing track for some of the instrumentals. Amy Lee was wearing a corset which kept coming undone. Now this always seems strange to me, as when you sing you need to breathe from your diaphram.. but if you are wearing a corset then surely this is restricting how much breath you can have, and stifling the sound that you could make? This seems to make her voice sound quite weak, when studio recordings sound a lot more power in her voice (ignoring all the perfections of digital sound manipulation). Still, she really threw everything at it, and threw herself around the stage - after each song she was really breathless. They played 3 new songs in a row and then went back to songs from
Fallen. Strangely, I only saw one person being crowd surfed to the
front to be pulled out throughout the whole gig, as the Astoria
was swelteringly hot, and there was a lot of pushing and crowd movement.
At the end Evanescence went off the stage, and everyone was expecting
an encore... but they didn't play one... which was a shame, but
never mind. So in conclusion it was a brilliant gig, and if they
got this level of reception for their first proper gig, then this
band will be huge!
All text, photos and videos are copyright Chris Hunter 2002. All rights reserved. |
