|
|
| Saturday, March 17, 2007 |
No fading away
Fresno fans finally get to see Evanescence.
By Mike Osegueda / The Fresno Bee
03/15/07 03:57:44
What: Evanescence in concert with Chevelle and Finger Eleven
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday
Where: Selland Arena
Tickets: $24.25-$32.25
Details: (559) 445-8200, www.ticketmaster.com
Quick Job Search
'I don't feel 25," says Amy Lee, the lead singer of Evanescence. "I feel 35."
She just awoke. It's a Tuesday morning in Australia, where the band is touring and getting to swim with sharks at SeaWorld.
Back in Showbizland, where swimming with sharks means something totally different, it's still Monday night.
Talk about two different worlds.
But Lee is used to living in another world. For her and Evanescence, which performs Friday night at Selland Arena, that's what stardom has been.
It's this strange universe that plucked a young girl from Arkansas with an enchanting voice, trotted her out to Hollywood, put her on the radio, made her a star and hung a microscope over her as she tried to sort out the drama in her life.
"The industry is so weird and crazy," she says. "Just to live this life for three years is 10 years. It's not real life. It's crazy life."
Let's go back three years and six months, to October 2003.
Evanescence had struck it big with its single "Bring Me To Life." The group was on its way to selling 6 million copies of its debut album, "Fallen," and winning a Grammy for best new artist.
The Save Mart Center was about to open, and an Evanescence date was announced for November.
Then, everything started to unravel.
Ben Moody, the band's guitarist, co-songwriter and co-founder, whom Lee met at a youth camp when they were both teens, left the band right in the middle of a European tour.
There were numerous reports of clashes between him and Lee. The Fresno date was canceled.
Drama abounded. It all could have ended right there.
"It's weird to even look back," Lee says. "I feel like if I were to have a conversation with myself three years ago, it would be like we wouldn't even get along."
The group chugged on after Moody's departure, scrambling to add another guitar player, Terry Balsamo.
"My Immortal," the band's haunting second single, became a huge hit. They won their Grammy in 2004. Then it seemed like Evanescence disappeared.
The next we heard, bass player Will Boyd was leaving the group. That was in 2006. And in the process of putting together "The Open Door," the band's second album, new guitarist Balsamo suffered a stroke.
He recuperated while the CD was getting finished, pressed and distributed and is now back on tour.
Still, it was another dramatic turn for a very dramatic band.
"We have been through a lot of different things as a band and as people," Lee says. "The more I'm around it, the more I think every band goes through a lot of this stuff. It's just sort of been publicized in this way for us.
"They just threw five things into one sentence: 'Wow, member leaves band, second member leaves band -- which were like three years apart -- cat runs away, Terry has a stroke, and I can't believe they're on tour.' It's kinda silly. It's not that it isn't true. It's just sensationalized."
The truth is that Evanescence probably couldn't exist without the drama.
It's the drama that propels "The Open Door," the group's second album, which was released in October.
It's the drama that drives Lee's lyrics -- ripped right from her personal life, her wounds opened wide for the world to hear.
And the music. It's so dark and moody, the logical sum of a girl classically trained at the piano but who also loved the dark rock music of the '90s. Simply put, it's dramatic.
Rolling Stone magazine put it best: "Evanescence's goth-metal bombast got its impact from Lee's spirituality, as she played her piano and sang about her haunted romances with both boys and God. In the process, she became America's favorite Christian zombie-vampire girl."
"It's about," Lee says, "making that connection with somebody and going, 'This is what I feel like' and doing your best to describe something that's indescribable and have someone else get it and see exactly what you're seeing. It's like another language."
Or another world.
One where, after three years of drama, Amy Lee is in Australia and all kinds of perky.
One where all the open wounds of past relationships closed a little bit when she slid an engagement ring onto her finger in January.
One where she's trying to find her own happiness.
"The biggest lesson I've learned is that if things are messed up and you're unhappy, you can't just wait around for everything to fix itself," Lee says. "You have to actually stand up and make changes.
"It's hard. It's a lot harder than sitting there and whining about it and writing an album full of songs about how lost you are. If you actually go, 'All right, that's it, I don't want to be unhappy anymore.' There are things in your life that you can change to be healthier and better."
That's who Fresno will see on Friday. The healthier, better Evanescence.
"You're gonna be seeing a way better show now than you would have three years ago anyway," Lee laughs.
source - fresnobee.com |
posted by lacrymosa @ 1:26 AM   |
|
|
|
|
| Previous Posts |
|
| Links |
|
|
| Template |
|
|
