I know I’ve covered this particular topic before, but after seeing Evanescence live on Sunday I was inspired 
For anyone who’s ever thought about catching them and thought “nah”, go see ‘em ASAP. Seriously, one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen with Ms Lee hitting virtually everything dead on without breaking into a sweat. Oh, and if the live version of My Immortal is anything to go by the upcoming single should be a massive hit. Anyway, this is meant to be tickle-fic not a music review, so on with the show…
************************
"What the hell are we doing here?" That was the only thought bouncing through my head as I stood with the rest of the band in the inky blackness, the crowd lit only by the emergency lights of the theatre as we waited for our cue.
It had all started so simply. Since we'd formed the band about a year ago we'd been doing the pub scene, playing pretty regularly to audiences of a couple of hundred people and having a great time doing so. Okay, so we didn;t exactly have a welth of original material, in fact we only had two songs we felt were good enough to be played in public, but between me, Tom and Emily we could play a pretty good cover version of any song we wanted. In truth, that's how we liked it and we played gigs much the same way we jammed when practicing at home, throwing songs out almost at random and just heading in whatever direction we wanted to.
We'd become friendly with a few other groups and often hung out with them, listenign to their sets and occasionaly gate crashing to play along with 'em. About a week ago we'd all been stunned when one of those groups had gotten a call from their management with an offer to play several UK gigs with Evanescence as a support act. Naturally we'd all immediatley started trying to grovel for backstage passes and Tony had come through in fine style, providing all-access tickets to one of the London gigs. And that's where things started to get a little weird.
We'd turned up a few hours before the show had started, intending to hang out with Tony and the guys, hell, we even brought along our guitars in case we got a chance to play on such a big stage duing the soundchecks. Only problem was, A26 never arrived as, unbeknownst to us at the time, they'd been involved in a pretty serious car crash en route that would leave Tony in hospital for a couple of weeks and sideline the band for at least six months while they healed up. As I said though, we didn't know that at the time, and when the road crew asked us to help out with the soundcheck we agreed without hesitation.
I'll never forget walking out onto that stage for the first time, surrounded by equipment and the rather impressive Evanescence set. Even though the auditorium was empty it was still grand, imposing, leaving me awestruck as I gazed around, my mind's eye already picturing what it would be like to play here in front of an audience. "Fucking big, in't it?" Tom said as he wandered by to his normal position stage left. He was right, it was fucking big.
Spell well and trully broken we got into it, playing a mix of slow, fast and so-fast-you-could-loose-fingers stuff for the road crew to calibrate the speaker system and sort out the accoustics. We figured we were doing something right when on more than one occasion we caught the stage manager standing around listening rather than yelling at the rest of his team, an unusual occurance to put it mildly. We were just about to finish up when the same stage manager asked us if we could play one more song, as he wanted to check the sound levels for himself at the very back of the balcony and if we could make it something that used as big a range as possible. A few seconds mentally flicking through our repitua later and I had the perfect track in mind.
It took him a couple of minutes to negotiate the maze of steps up and around to the back row of the theatre, then we launched into our version of Bring Me To LIfe. Yeah, I know, cheaky as hell considering this was an Evanescence show, but how often were we going to get the chance to take the mick out of one of our favourite bands like this? While Emily was actually a very good singer, she couldn't match Amy's original vocals and we tried to compensate with an extra guitar part, using the ridiculous range on my Brian May replica to put in a counterpoint to the lyrics. It had always gone down well in our usual haunts, and within a few seconds of playing the first chorus we actually had a small audience watching from the wings. Inspired we threw caution, and dignity, to the winds and started playing as if there was a full audience in front of us, with me and Tom playing to the empty mosh pit as Emily did her best to work the rest of the 'crowd'. It must have looked ridiculous, but it seemed we were gaining some fans in the small group behind us, something that was driven home a few seconds later as there was a single click of a microphone going live and the next thing we knew Amy was actually on stage, matching her vocals to Emily, letting us carry the song as she provided the backing track.
For a second we almost lost the plot, the sheer shock of playing with a genuine star more than enough to leave us slack jawed, even without an audience this was a dream come true. Thankfully the fingers knew the track well enough to play without any direct input from the brain and we shock it off in time to hit the final chorus with a timing and grace we'd never done before. Finishing to a burst of applause from crew and performers alike we came off stage grinning like lunatics, Emily and Amy locked in conversation as we went through the usual process of packing away the guitars and sneaking a couple of blasts of deodarent when no-one was looking. I was just finsihing zipping the guitar bag closed when there was a slight cough behind me. I turned round and found myself looking at an angel.
Now I have to explain something here, I know that a lot of people don't consider Ms Lee to be good looking, and in all honesty I held that view for a long time myself. Up close though she really is stunning, a great figure of course, but more than that there's something else there, that x-factor if you like, that just sets every sense on edge and you just can't take your eyes off her. Strange but true. Amazingly I didn't become hopelessly tongue tied and after a couple of stuttered introductions on my part, settled down and started to have an actual conversation with her. We talked for a few minutes about, well, nothing really, just the sort of general chit-chat you'd have with someone you'd known for years and I found myself utterly captivated by her. The conversation eventually moved on to music, and she told me they'd heard A26 wouldn't be turning up that night. Unfortunatley she didn't know why they weren't available, and I asumed they'd just got caught in traffic or something similar and would miss their stage time. It was then that she dropped the bombshell on me: would we be interested in playing that night?
Now, seriously, what on earth do you say to such an offer? On the one hand you have one of the hottest bands of the year offering you a support gig in front of three and a half thousand people, on the other you have the slight problem that there's about two hours till the show and you haven't even got your drum kit with you, let alone any stage clothes, set lists, etc etc etc. So naturally, I said yes. The next hour passed in a blur as Tom headed out for the nearest music shop to grab the stuff we didn't have on hand while Emily, Tina nad myself came up with a setlist and grabbed a passing stage hand to sort out some lighting effects. In a move that was such a blatant suck-up we really should get an award for it, we raided the merchandise booth and 'liberated' an armful of black t-shirts with the Evanescence logo both front and back and we were good to go.
Which brings us back full circle to where we started. It's an odd thing, but even after a year of doing this I still get stage fright every single bloody time. Doesn't matter how many people we're playing to or what sort of set we're doing, it always happens and there doesn't seem to be a damn thing I can do about it. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity a single torch flashed at us from the wings and, with one last deep breath, I hit the opening riff to Metallica's Hit The Lights.
The reaction was incredible, the crowd coming alive from the first note and just building up with every passing moment. If you saw the MTV Icon show featuring Metallica back in the spring you'll have a pretty good idea of what we were going for. In short, it was five songs in seven minutes, one song from each of the first five albums and just a verse and chorus from each one. It's one of our favourite ways to start a show as it gets us into the swing of things damn quickly, everyone in the band gets to take vocal duties for at least one song and it normally fires the crowd up like no-one's business. It certainly did this night, and by the time we surged into Enter Sandman, and I'd taken over vocal duties for the next minute or so, the crowd was actually singing right along with us. In fact the response was so good I took a big gamble and let the crowd take the "end of night" line, hoping we wouldn't just get echoing silence back. We didn't, the roar of noise almost drowning out the guitars for a moment as we plowed on. Blackened went down a storm, and the Die chant on Creeping Death had the management casting woried glances at the ceiling. The cheer that met the opening bars of Battery was almost off the scale and by the time we finsihed we were all soaked in sweat and flying on adrenaline as we paused for a long, wonderful moment to try and absorb what was happening. Talk about a Kodak moment!
Knowing we had the crowd on our side we got adventourous. Normally we have two set lists for any given gig and swap back and forth bewteen the 'safer' one and the more interactive one as we felt appropriate. Throwing the safe one out the window we launched into a set of Queen tracks that seemed to throw a few in attendence, but got a lot of the more mature crowd on their feet. Bouncing from "I want it all" to "Tie your mother down" by way of "I want to break free" we'd pretty much run out of time as we headed into our wrap up song. If this was a 'normal' gig we'd have gone with something heavy to finish off, but let's face it, we were a warm up act for the main course and that means you don't give the crowd a natural end to the set, but leave them buzzing for the next one if you can. Thankfully we had the perfect song ready to go and, with a slightly shaky start as Tom and myself failed rather obviously to get in sync, ripped into Crazy little thing called love.
The masses were rocking in the aisles, and to my delight every single one of them joined in for the "Ready, Freddie!" line half way through the song, complete with a huge (and unprompted) cheer. It's nice to know that people remember, know what I mean? Our version of the song's a rip off of the live version from the Magic tour, so has about two minutes of guitar work at the end before building up and fading out, and for the vast bulk of that time the lead guitar duties fall on me. I'd just started the riff when the crowd went berserk. I glanced to my left at the rest of the stage and couldn't spot anything out of the ordinary, and by the time I turned to look right it was far, far too late.
A pair of slim hands wrapped around my ribs from behind and dug in, finding what felt like every single ticklish spot within a heartbeat. Thankfully I wasn't near an open mike, and the instant laughter was masked by the music. Under other circumstances, and with even a few seconds notice I could probably have fought back, but the attack had come from nowhere and once the floodgates were open there was no way back.
With three thousand pairs of eyes watching I sank to my knees, hands desperatly gripping the guitar as I struggled to keep playing in something approaching the right time and tune. The hands wandered up my flanks and wedged between my chest and arms, fingers delving deep into my armputs. Spots burst in front of my eyes as questing fingernails brushed against my skin, directly against my skin as they'd slipped inside the sleeves of my t-shirt without me realsing it.Behind me I could feel a body close enough I could feel its warmth, but not quite touching me as those hands kept up their mercilless assault, moving much faster now on my vulnerable 'pits.
I was, by this point, a mess. Already tired from playing a pretty high energy set I didn't have a lot left in the tank and this was rapidly draining that reveserve. My jaw hung open as I gasped for breath, my legs crumpled under me and I rocked backwards, my thighs folded on top of my shins, feet tucked under my backside as I concentrated on the instrument in my hands. The world around me narrowed down, the venue itself fading away, my eyes locked on the guitar, my hands flying over the strings as if possessed and always those terrible, wonderful hands ducking and diving on my sides driving me on without mercy.
After what seemed like an eternity we reached the final few chords of the song and, as I put everything my abused body had left into one last effort I felt those hands slide down and around, moving effortlessly under my t-shirt to caress my waist and stomach, driving the last molecules of oxygen from my aching lungs. I slumped forward, somehow managine to pull the lead from the guitar to avoid causing a wave of feedback as the guitar landed on the ground, those hands supporting me and lowering me gently to the floor, the stage lights flicking off as the last note faded to produce a rather artistic effect. As I lay there panting the body finally pressed into my back as a pair of warm lips touched my ear, whispering "Welcome to the tour", delivering a quick kiss that made me shiver, then vanishing into the dark as she made her way off stage.
I followed as best I could, litteraly crawling off into the wings, guitar held carfeully down by my side to avoid any possibility of damaging it. Finally making it behind the safety of a speaker stack I flopped over onto my back and just lay there, trying as best I could to suck air into my lungs and wait for the room to stop spinning as I replayed what had just happened in my mind. On reflection I thought I'd handled it pretty well, all things considered, and the fact my band mates weren't hunting me down for screwing up seemed to suggest I'd hit most of the right notes at the right time.
It took a good ten minutes for my body to recover to the point I could stand without having to hold onto something. Moving carefully I shuffled my way over to the small heap of kit we'd either brought with us or amased in the last couple of hours and dug out the only empty guitar case. I was just finishing sliding the zip shut when I glanced up at the wall of speakers in front of me. There, in the chrome strip running along the front of one of the amps, I saw a perfect reflection of a by now familliar figure creeping towards me, hands forward slightly as she obviously meant to pick up where she'd left off. Not wanting to alert her to the fact she'd been spotted I looked down again, but kept my eyes up, focused on that reflection. As she got within a couple of feet of me I saw her tense and jump forward, just as I took a long side step off to the right. Amy landed slightly off balance as there was nothing there to stop her forward momentum and for a moment she had to plant both hands on the speakers in front of her to stay upright.
In that split second I moved behind her and this time it was my hands assaulting ribs, diving over the bare skin between tank top and jeans, wondering if this was even going to work, if she was at all ticklish or if I was just making the inevitable revenge that much worse.
For anyone who’s ever thought about catching them and thought “nah”, go see ‘em ASAP. Seriously, one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen with Ms Lee hitting virtually everything dead on without breaking into a sweat. Oh, and if the live version of My Immortal is anything to go by the upcoming single should be a massive hit. Anyway, this is meant to be tickle-fic not a music review, so on with the show…************************
"What the hell are we doing here?" That was the only thought bouncing through my head as I stood with the rest of the band in the inky blackness, the crowd lit only by the emergency lights of the theatre as we waited for our cue.
It had all started so simply. Since we'd formed the band about a year ago we'd been doing the pub scene, playing pretty regularly to audiences of a couple of hundred people and having a great time doing so. Okay, so we didn;t exactly have a welth of original material, in fact we only had two songs we felt were good enough to be played in public, but between me, Tom and Emily we could play a pretty good cover version of any song we wanted. In truth, that's how we liked it and we played gigs much the same way we jammed when practicing at home, throwing songs out almost at random and just heading in whatever direction we wanted to.
We'd become friendly with a few other groups and often hung out with them, listenign to their sets and occasionaly gate crashing to play along with 'em. About a week ago we'd all been stunned when one of those groups had gotten a call from their management with an offer to play several UK gigs with Evanescence as a support act. Naturally we'd all immediatley started trying to grovel for backstage passes and Tony had come through in fine style, providing all-access tickets to one of the London gigs. And that's where things started to get a little weird.
We'd turned up a few hours before the show had started, intending to hang out with Tony and the guys, hell, we even brought along our guitars in case we got a chance to play on such a big stage duing the soundchecks. Only problem was, A26 never arrived as, unbeknownst to us at the time, they'd been involved in a pretty serious car crash en route that would leave Tony in hospital for a couple of weeks and sideline the band for at least six months while they healed up. As I said though, we didn't know that at the time, and when the road crew asked us to help out with the soundcheck we agreed without hesitation.
I'll never forget walking out onto that stage for the first time, surrounded by equipment and the rather impressive Evanescence set. Even though the auditorium was empty it was still grand, imposing, leaving me awestruck as I gazed around, my mind's eye already picturing what it would be like to play here in front of an audience. "Fucking big, in't it?" Tom said as he wandered by to his normal position stage left. He was right, it was fucking big.
Spell well and trully broken we got into it, playing a mix of slow, fast and so-fast-you-could-loose-fingers stuff for the road crew to calibrate the speaker system and sort out the accoustics. We figured we were doing something right when on more than one occasion we caught the stage manager standing around listening rather than yelling at the rest of his team, an unusual occurance to put it mildly. We were just about to finish up when the same stage manager asked us if we could play one more song, as he wanted to check the sound levels for himself at the very back of the balcony and if we could make it something that used as big a range as possible. A few seconds mentally flicking through our repitua later and I had the perfect track in mind.
It took him a couple of minutes to negotiate the maze of steps up and around to the back row of the theatre, then we launched into our version of Bring Me To LIfe. Yeah, I know, cheaky as hell considering this was an Evanescence show, but how often were we going to get the chance to take the mick out of one of our favourite bands like this? While Emily was actually a very good singer, she couldn't match Amy's original vocals and we tried to compensate with an extra guitar part, using the ridiculous range on my Brian May replica to put in a counterpoint to the lyrics. It had always gone down well in our usual haunts, and within a few seconds of playing the first chorus we actually had a small audience watching from the wings. Inspired we threw caution, and dignity, to the winds and started playing as if there was a full audience in front of us, with me and Tom playing to the empty mosh pit as Emily did her best to work the rest of the 'crowd'. It must have looked ridiculous, but it seemed we were gaining some fans in the small group behind us, something that was driven home a few seconds later as there was a single click of a microphone going live and the next thing we knew Amy was actually on stage, matching her vocals to Emily, letting us carry the song as she provided the backing track.
For a second we almost lost the plot, the sheer shock of playing with a genuine star more than enough to leave us slack jawed, even without an audience this was a dream come true. Thankfully the fingers knew the track well enough to play without any direct input from the brain and we shock it off in time to hit the final chorus with a timing and grace we'd never done before. Finishing to a burst of applause from crew and performers alike we came off stage grinning like lunatics, Emily and Amy locked in conversation as we went through the usual process of packing away the guitars and sneaking a couple of blasts of deodarent when no-one was looking. I was just finsihing zipping the guitar bag closed when there was a slight cough behind me. I turned round and found myself looking at an angel.
Now I have to explain something here, I know that a lot of people don't consider Ms Lee to be good looking, and in all honesty I held that view for a long time myself. Up close though she really is stunning, a great figure of course, but more than that there's something else there, that x-factor if you like, that just sets every sense on edge and you just can't take your eyes off her. Strange but true. Amazingly I didn't become hopelessly tongue tied and after a couple of stuttered introductions on my part, settled down and started to have an actual conversation with her. We talked for a few minutes about, well, nothing really, just the sort of general chit-chat you'd have with someone you'd known for years and I found myself utterly captivated by her. The conversation eventually moved on to music, and she told me they'd heard A26 wouldn't be turning up that night. Unfortunatley she didn't know why they weren't available, and I asumed they'd just got caught in traffic or something similar and would miss their stage time. It was then that she dropped the bombshell on me: would we be interested in playing that night?
Now, seriously, what on earth do you say to such an offer? On the one hand you have one of the hottest bands of the year offering you a support gig in front of three and a half thousand people, on the other you have the slight problem that there's about two hours till the show and you haven't even got your drum kit with you, let alone any stage clothes, set lists, etc etc etc. So naturally, I said yes. The next hour passed in a blur as Tom headed out for the nearest music shop to grab the stuff we didn't have on hand while Emily, Tina nad myself came up with a setlist and grabbed a passing stage hand to sort out some lighting effects. In a move that was such a blatant suck-up we really should get an award for it, we raided the merchandise booth and 'liberated' an armful of black t-shirts with the Evanescence logo both front and back and we were good to go.
Which brings us back full circle to where we started. It's an odd thing, but even after a year of doing this I still get stage fright every single bloody time. Doesn't matter how many people we're playing to or what sort of set we're doing, it always happens and there doesn't seem to be a damn thing I can do about it. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity a single torch flashed at us from the wings and, with one last deep breath, I hit the opening riff to Metallica's Hit The Lights.
The reaction was incredible, the crowd coming alive from the first note and just building up with every passing moment. If you saw the MTV Icon show featuring Metallica back in the spring you'll have a pretty good idea of what we were going for. In short, it was five songs in seven minutes, one song from each of the first five albums and just a verse and chorus from each one. It's one of our favourite ways to start a show as it gets us into the swing of things damn quickly, everyone in the band gets to take vocal duties for at least one song and it normally fires the crowd up like no-one's business. It certainly did this night, and by the time we surged into Enter Sandman, and I'd taken over vocal duties for the next minute or so, the crowd was actually singing right along with us. In fact the response was so good I took a big gamble and let the crowd take the "end of night" line, hoping we wouldn't just get echoing silence back. We didn't, the roar of noise almost drowning out the guitars for a moment as we plowed on. Blackened went down a storm, and the Die chant on Creeping Death had the management casting woried glances at the ceiling. The cheer that met the opening bars of Battery was almost off the scale and by the time we finsihed we were all soaked in sweat and flying on adrenaline as we paused for a long, wonderful moment to try and absorb what was happening. Talk about a Kodak moment!
Knowing we had the crowd on our side we got adventourous. Normally we have two set lists for any given gig and swap back and forth bewteen the 'safer' one and the more interactive one as we felt appropriate. Throwing the safe one out the window we launched into a set of Queen tracks that seemed to throw a few in attendence, but got a lot of the more mature crowd on their feet. Bouncing from "I want it all" to "Tie your mother down" by way of "I want to break free" we'd pretty much run out of time as we headed into our wrap up song. If this was a 'normal' gig we'd have gone with something heavy to finish off, but let's face it, we were a warm up act for the main course and that means you don't give the crowd a natural end to the set, but leave them buzzing for the next one if you can. Thankfully we had the perfect song ready to go and, with a slightly shaky start as Tom and myself failed rather obviously to get in sync, ripped into Crazy little thing called love.
The masses were rocking in the aisles, and to my delight every single one of them joined in for the "Ready, Freddie!" line half way through the song, complete with a huge (and unprompted) cheer. It's nice to know that people remember, know what I mean? Our version of the song's a rip off of the live version from the Magic tour, so has about two minutes of guitar work at the end before building up and fading out, and for the vast bulk of that time the lead guitar duties fall on me. I'd just started the riff when the crowd went berserk. I glanced to my left at the rest of the stage and couldn't spot anything out of the ordinary, and by the time I turned to look right it was far, far too late.
A pair of slim hands wrapped around my ribs from behind and dug in, finding what felt like every single ticklish spot within a heartbeat. Thankfully I wasn't near an open mike, and the instant laughter was masked by the music. Under other circumstances, and with even a few seconds notice I could probably have fought back, but the attack had come from nowhere and once the floodgates were open there was no way back.
With three thousand pairs of eyes watching I sank to my knees, hands desperatly gripping the guitar as I struggled to keep playing in something approaching the right time and tune. The hands wandered up my flanks and wedged between my chest and arms, fingers delving deep into my armputs. Spots burst in front of my eyes as questing fingernails brushed against my skin, directly against my skin as they'd slipped inside the sleeves of my t-shirt without me realsing it.Behind me I could feel a body close enough I could feel its warmth, but not quite touching me as those hands kept up their mercilless assault, moving much faster now on my vulnerable 'pits.
I was, by this point, a mess. Already tired from playing a pretty high energy set I didn't have a lot left in the tank and this was rapidly draining that reveserve. My jaw hung open as I gasped for breath, my legs crumpled under me and I rocked backwards, my thighs folded on top of my shins, feet tucked under my backside as I concentrated on the instrument in my hands. The world around me narrowed down, the venue itself fading away, my eyes locked on the guitar, my hands flying over the strings as if possessed and always those terrible, wonderful hands ducking and diving on my sides driving me on without mercy.
After what seemed like an eternity we reached the final few chords of the song and, as I put everything my abused body had left into one last effort I felt those hands slide down and around, moving effortlessly under my t-shirt to caress my waist and stomach, driving the last molecules of oxygen from my aching lungs. I slumped forward, somehow managine to pull the lead from the guitar to avoid causing a wave of feedback as the guitar landed on the ground, those hands supporting me and lowering me gently to the floor, the stage lights flicking off as the last note faded to produce a rather artistic effect. As I lay there panting the body finally pressed into my back as a pair of warm lips touched my ear, whispering "Welcome to the tour", delivering a quick kiss that made me shiver, then vanishing into the dark as she made her way off stage.
I followed as best I could, litteraly crawling off into the wings, guitar held carfeully down by my side to avoid any possibility of damaging it. Finally making it behind the safety of a speaker stack I flopped over onto my back and just lay there, trying as best I could to suck air into my lungs and wait for the room to stop spinning as I replayed what had just happened in my mind. On reflection I thought I'd handled it pretty well, all things considered, and the fact my band mates weren't hunting me down for screwing up seemed to suggest I'd hit most of the right notes at the right time.
It took a good ten minutes for my body to recover to the point I could stand without having to hold onto something. Moving carefully I shuffled my way over to the small heap of kit we'd either brought with us or amased in the last couple of hours and dug out the only empty guitar case. I was just finishing sliding the zip shut when I glanced up at the wall of speakers in front of me. There, in the chrome strip running along the front of one of the amps, I saw a perfect reflection of a by now familliar figure creeping towards me, hands forward slightly as she obviously meant to pick up where she'd left off. Not wanting to alert her to the fact she'd been spotted I looked down again, but kept my eyes up, focused on that reflection. As she got within a couple of feet of me I saw her tense and jump forward, just as I took a long side step off to the right. Amy landed slightly off balance as there was nothing there to stop her forward momentum and for a moment she had to plant both hands on the speakers in front of her to stay upright.
In that split second I moved behind her and this time it was my hands assaulting ribs, diving over the bare skin between tank top and jeans, wondering if this was even going to work, if she was at all ticklish or if I was just making the inevitable revenge that much worse.
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