Gig played on 24/05/04

She’s got, as the poet once said, the Look. And back in the Old Goths’ Home in the People’s Republic of Yorkshire, one imagines, there’s a wry teeth-sucking at the funny-old-worldness of it all. Of all the British youth tribes marooned on the shores of history, the black-clad massive seemed the kids least likely to see their heritage hoovered up and turned into the chart equivalent of a Gap fashion moment in malls worldwide.

But up there on the Wembley stage tonight, large as life, there it is. Namely, what looks awfully like a goth: Arkansas’ own Amy Lee, of Christian-lite power-ballading, unit shifters Evanescence, all big ol’ clompy boots and black net skirt and Patricia Morrison-tastic long black hair glory, and looking pretty fine with it.

The only hitch in this goth-shall-rise-again event, of course, is that Amy’s clobber is sweetly beside the point to Amy The Performer, who bears more resemblance to a de-sexed Shania Twain than a Julianne Regan or witchy goth-mother Stevie Nicks. She’s little, she’s gym-fit, she’s clearly in charge, and she’s giving it some with that agreeably strong, if hardly Tori Amos-ly beguiling, voice.

She’s punching the air like a paintballing-weekend junior exec over the squirting guitar chords and booming Phil Collins-esque drums of “Going Under” and “Taking Over Me”; she’s briskly barking “You still good out there London?” and “You’ve been awesome so far; if you don’t mind we’re going to bring it down for a couple of songs”, for all the world like some rock version of a customer satisfaction representative.

And for anyone not sucking teeth in impotent fury at a chart-topping goth act minus the goth, it’s a solid, unspooky, workmanlike arena rock show. From the efficient delivery of the Diane Warren-like new single “Everybody’s Fool” (precision chorus full of vast formless emotion) to Amy’s smiling at-the-piano renditions of a singalonga “My Immortal” segueing into a lengthy but heroically tight, “Bring Me To Life”, this is the kind of show that bands of this calibre deliver. A set of standard-issue Limp Bizkit-y men (one wearing off-message brown trousers) hammer pensively at their instruments; a distinctly non-black-clad audience indicates solid satisfaction; the 'Star Trek'-esque band logo hovers importantly above.

For the record, or the teeth-suckers, the only thing that was ever moody about all of this was founder member Ben Moody, and he’s gone off to play with Avril Lavigne. No one here, least of all the hard-working Little Rock gal with the improbable wardrobe, seems to notice.

by Jennifer Nine