LIVE FROM THE PIT: Evanescence, Poppy and K.Flay
For so many millennials, EVANESCENCE has been a lifeline, a band whose fusion of vulnerability, theatrical darkness and raw catharsis offered a language for emotions they didn’t yet know how to name. With their songs shaping adolescence, survival and identity in ways that still echo through the people who grew up with them, seeing them perform over twenty years since they arrived on the scene is something special. An EVANESCENCE live show does not ease you in, it hits like a cathedral collapsing in slow motion. Supported by American shape‑shifting artist K.FLAY and alt‑music’s most unpredictable force POPPY, the opening night of the Sanctuary tour at First Direct Arena in Leeds was no exception.
Opening up the evening was K.FLAY, whose appeal sits in her ability to fuse emotional excavation with jagged hooks and genre‑fluid production. Despite a few early technical difficulties, she tore straight into Scratch and Raw Raw, with a jolt of adrenaline that snapped the room awake. A heady setlist of tracks followed; Tomboys Don’t Cry dragging its knuckles through self‑mythology, Blood in the Cut detonating like a long‑buried confession, and Rabbit Hole brought that familiar, frantic self‑interrogation. By the time she hit High Enough and unveiled Ants, a new track crawling with static‑charged tension, K.FLAY was no longer performing - she’s peeling back layers in real time, each line landing like another cut opened under the arena lights.
Second support act POPPY delivered high energy from the very first line; the crowd was instantly captivated by her surreal, heavy, genre‑warping set. Leeds got the full collision course from her performance: the sugar‑rush twitch of Scary Mask, the pulse of crystallized, the weight of vital and Guardian, the industrial snarl of Public Domain, and the pit‑splitting violence of the BAD OMEN’s collaboration track V.A.N. Every shift in the sound felt deliberate, contrasts of cute twisted into terrifying. Finishing with If We’re Following the Light, her performance commanded the crowd, and proved she’s operating at a level far beyond just a support act.
Leeds is already roaring before Amy Lee even steps into the light, a silhouette sharpened by two decades of turning vulnerability into something volcanic. The moment her voice cuts through the dark, the room is captivated and locked in. This is not just nostalgia, but a band proving their legacy still has teeth, still has fire, still has the power to pull thousands together. From the first chord of Sanctuary the crowd was ready for more. The band moved through the opening track with an urgent energy that set the tone for a show built on contrasts: brutality and tenderness, spectacle and intimacy. Tell Me When You've Had Enough and Afterlife landed with precise aggression from both guitars and drums, while Amy’s voice threaded through the noise with uncanny control.
Rapture and Going Under shifted the mood mid set, digging into familiar territory, but it was the stripped moments that followed that cut the deepest. Lithium was played on the catwalk of the stage, on a piano that rose from the ground, with the arrangement bringing beauty to the raw and exposed track. A highlight of the night came with Like You, played live for the first time in the UK, twenty years since the release of The Open Door. The song’s live debut felt like a rediscovery, old wounds and new perspective braided into a performance that honored the original while reframing it for now.
Self Destruct and Calm Down reintroduced the heavier textures, reminding the audience why the band’s dynamics remain so compelling. The staging around Call Me When You're Sober was cinematic: a wall of fire before the band, the official music video projected behind them, turning the song into a ritual. K.FLAY returned to the stage for Fight Like a Girl and injected a fierce, contemporary edge; making the collaboration electric and defiant. Beautiful Lie and Wasted on You followed, each delivered with emotional clarity, showing Amy Lee’s incredible vocal range. Forever Without You returned to the bare-boned intimacy shown earlier in the set, with the piano’s resonance filling the venue like breath.
Breakthrough hit Bring Me to Life had the crowd erupting before the chorus even had a chance to arrive; shouting every word from the first piano strike. The staging leaned into the spectacle without overwhelming the song, with sharp lighting bursts punctuating each transition, the band’s heavier live mix gave the track a grit that’s grown with them over the years and Lee’s vocal delivery was unwavering, cutting through the arena with clarity. The final lines had thousands of voices rising in unison. Imaginary followed with a different kind of intensity, delivering a slow‑burning surge where the band’s heavier edges softened into something dreamlike, letting Amy Lee’s phrasing hover in the air making the track feel both weightless and quietly devastating.
Better Without You and About Us threaded through the encore with cathartic release. What made the performance stand out for both tracks was the way the band held the tension from start to finish, never letting the energy dip, with Amy’s phrasing carrying a quiet vulnerability that resonated across the arena, especially in the moments where the instrumentation pulled back and her voice sat almost alone. Next came the live debut of End of You with POPPY, which was a moment of theatrical collision. POPPY’s presence transformed the song into something darker and more playful, which the crowd enjoyed every moment of.
The live arrangement for Who Will You Follow leaned darker and more expansive, giving the track a slow-building tension that paid off in its final stretch. The band’s interplay was tight and deliberate, each part locking into place as the song grew. When the chorus opened up, the arena erupted with voices, turning the track into one of the emotional peaks of the night. During My Immortal, the penultimate song of the night, the arena became a constellation as thousands of phone lights lit up the arena, with a communal hush that made the song feel even more sacred than it did back in 2003. Wide Open Heart, the closing track on EVANESCENCE’s sixth studio album, Sanctuary ensured the set ended on both triumphant and reflective notes. Amy Lee’s vocal delivery was striking in its restraint. Rather than leaning into power, she shaped the song with a careful, aching clarity that made every line feel close.
After the final song of the night, Lee spoke to the crowd, with her final words landing like a call to action: “Take the fire and let it feed you - into the darkness and out the other side.” The line summed up a night that burned and healed so many in equal measure, as the red confetti fell from the ceiling.
Words: Lou Viner-Flood
Photos courtesy of Seanen Middleton/Chuff Media
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