Review: Evanescence is at the height of its powers during huge Bay Area show

Evanescence left no doubt as to what the main mission was on Monday night (July 20) at Shoreline Amphitheatre, as the multiplatinum-selling rock act devoted more than half of its winning 21-song set to the band’s first new release in over five years.

“There are so many of you!” Evanescence vocalist Amy Lee exclaimed at the sight of some 17,000 fans standing before her at the Mountain View venue. “It’s also my extreme pleasure to finally be able to say that our album ‘Sanctuary’ is out. Thank you so much. We love you guys. Got a lot of ground to cover. Let’s go!”

The Arkansas act, which Lee co-founded with former guitarist Ben Moody in Little Rock in 1994 and went on to achieve massive success with the quadruple-platinum debut “Fallen” in 2003, kicked off its 100-minute show with the new album’s title track and then kept right on mining this sixth studio outing, which follows 2021’s “The Bitter Truth.” The band’s next three offerings — “Tell Me When You’ve Had Enough,” “Afterlife” and “Rapture” — all hailed from “Sanctuary,” before the band finally zoomed back to the debut with a massive take on the goth/nu-metal anthem “Going Under.”

The extreme focus on the new album made sense in a lot of ways. First and foremost, “Sanctuary” is an incredibly good album — easily the best the band has made since 2006’s “The Open Door” — and it’s highly worth this kind of a showcase. Evanescence sounds inspired, revitalized and so very urgent on this record, which has a little more of an electronic edge but not enough to really feel like a departure from the kind of gothy mall rock that originally made the band popular with Hot Topic shoppers across the nation.

And despite all the renewed love for all things early aughts — which helped Hilary Duff bring in a very different crowd (less goth, more butterfly hair clips) to Shoreline the previous week — Evanescence really seems to have no interest in being seen as simply an early 2000s nostalgia act. Lee and company clearly want to be a band that is still moving forward, still producing great new music and still capable of producing songs that stand tall next to the greatest hits.

Thanks to “Sanctuary” — and shows like the one we saw at Shoreline — that goal has most definitely been achieved.

Lee was her regular force of nature, showcasing her soaring vocals — which shake listeners to their very core with a mix of such unbridled strength and emotion — against the band’s signature mix of orchestral-like swells and deep metal grooves. There were several occasions where Lee’s voice would reach so high, or cut so deep, that it would leave one gasping in awe.

What makes Lee’s vocal work even more impactful is the way she sets it up by prefacing the songs in ways that truly connect with her audience. She comes across as part guidance counselor, part cheerleader and, more than anything else, fully caring friend as she uses the song intros to walk alongside the fans in whatever they may be going through. All of that was on full display as sat down at a long black piano and got ready to sing “Forever Without You,” a song about coming to terms with the end of a toxic relationship.

“As terrifying and impossible as it may seem to take that first step out the door of a bad situation, I promise you — you are worth it,” Lee told the fans with same sincerity that is found in her vocal work. “You deserve to know what you’re capable of. You go into the world to find out what you’re capable of. And it’s better on the other side.”

The rest of the band — guitarists Troy McLawhorn and Tim McCord, drummer Will Hunt and bassist Emma Anzai — was also in tip-top shape, always managing to convey the right emotive wall of sound to frame Lee’s path. “Sanctuary” is the first Evanescence to feature Anzai, who not only did solid work on the bass but also provided nice backing vocals.

The staging was also quite impressive, with plenty of well-timed and dramatic pyrotechnics in use as well as three separate platforms that would individually lift the drum set and two guitarists into the air. It was good enough eye candy to even draw our attention away from Lee’s vocals — at least momentarily — but it would never last for long as Lee’s voice kept calling us back again.

As the band charged toward the end of the set, embracing “Bring Me to Life,” “Imaginary,” “About Us,” “Who Will You Follow” and other numbers, one thing began to feel so very familiar — that usual cathartic experience one gets at an Evanescence show.

It’s as if Lee is howling not just for her own pain, worries and confusion — but for all of ours. And then, time and time again, she’d leads us right back to hope.

“When (expletive) gets hard, when you feel scared later — tomorrow, next week, next month — when you feel alone, when you feel like the whole world is crazy, remember this,” Lee said in reference to the experience that the fans and the band were having on this night. “This is what is real. This is who we really are.”

Evanescence setlist:

1. “Sanctuary”
2. “Tell Me When You’ve Had Enough”
3. “Afterlife”
4. “Rapture”
5. “Going Under”
6. “Lithium”
7. “Like You”
8. “Self Destruct”
9. “Calm Down”
10. “Call Me When You’re Sober”
11. “Beautiful Lie”
12. “Wasted on You”
13. “Forever Without You”
14. “Bring Me to Life”
15. “Imaginary”
16. “Better Without You”
17. “About Us”
18. “Fight Like a Girl”
19. “Who Will You Follow”
20. “My Immortal”
21. “Wide Open Heart”