This reminded me that I bought Beautiful Wife and I an early Christmas present last weekend: Evanescence, Anywhere but Home which contains a CD of their concert performances and a DVD of their concert in Paris.

Watching Amy Lee perform live is just about as much musical fun as I’ve ever had. She’s definitely not lip-synching and she ROCKS out the songs from “Fallen” in a way that you wonder if she really isn’t an angel who’s drifted away. It’s hard to believe that someone can bang their head and thrash around in pure joy/agony the way she does all the while singing in THAT voice. That voice…I get chills hearing it…still…and I’ve probably over-played “Fallen” until any normal human would be sick of it from sheer repitition.

Oddly enough, she reminds me of a young Stevie Nicks. Any of you old enough to remember the “Rumors” tour? Put that image of Stevie whirling like a dervish around the stage in your head and add some metal/goth attitude and about 2000 watts of energy and you get Amy Lee. When she brings it down on “My Immortal,” it’s just her and the piano…she will once again take your heart out just like she did the first time you heard it and you swear she’s never going to give it back.

Warning for those of you who are strongly Christian and have problems with any Satanic and or Wiccan Imagery: You will hate this DVD. Most of the kids in the Paris audience are flashing the “I love you.” Amerislang symbol (which is also, supposedly, the sign for Witchcraft) and there’s a scene where Amy bows in full “I’m not worthy.” fashion to Rocky the Drummer while he’s wearing a Satan mask with his drumsticks on fire. Acoording to Gorgeous Daughter (who keeps up on these things far more than I do) this is mostly a slam to the Christian Recording Industry for passing up on “Fallen.” I don’t know about that. I get more of a feeling of their generation expressing the silliness of taking such things too seriously. In my mind, “Fallen” is nothing if not an exploration of faith. What does it mean? Is there redemption? What does THAT mean?

Oh…what does the cowbell have to do with anything? You’ll just have to watch the DVD to figure that one out.