“We’ve grown up together by now.” It is a simple observation from Amy Lee, but after more than two decades of Evanescence, it lands with extraordinary weight. This is a band whose songs have grown alongside their audience, soundtracking grief, heartbreak, anger, recovery and reinvention. At The O2 in London on Sunday night, Lee looks out across an arena packed with people who have travelled that journey with her and acknowledges the relationship for what it is: something shared. And tonight, that relationship is not built purely on nostalgia.
Evanescence @ The O2
Instead, Evanescence use their past as a launchpad for their future, with a set that leans heavily — emphatically so — on their sixth studio album, Sanctuary. Twelve of the record’s 13 songs appear across the evening, an unusually bold commitment for a band carrying a catalogue containing songs as culturally entrenched as Bring Me To Life, Going Under and My Immortal. The result is a show that feels less like a victory lap and more like a declaration: Evanescence are not simply preserving what they have built; they are still building.
Before that declaration arrives, the evening gets two very different injections of energy. Kristine Flaherty – AKA K.Flay – wastes little time establishing her ability to make the vast arena feel like a club. Scratch and Raw Raw immediately bring a restless physicality, while Tomboys Don’t Cry and Blood In The Cut push the set into a heavier, more abrasive territory. There is a deliberately unruly collision of rock, electronic textures and hip-hop attitude throughout, with Rabbit Hole, Blood Cells and High Enough demonstrating the breadth of an artist who refuses to sit comfortably inside one genre. Ants brings the short, sharp set to a close with the room properly warmed up.
K.Flay with Evanescence @ The O2
Then comes Poppy, who operates in an entirely different kind of strange. Opening with have you had enough?, she moves between industrial metal, electronic pop and something altogether more theatrical, with the cost of giving up, Bruised Sky and Scary Mask establishing a set that continually shifts shape. crystallized and vital lean into the heavier side of her sound, while Public Domain and Time Will Tell further underline her refusal to be predictable. A particularly effective V.A.N — her Bad Omens collaboration track — provides another sharp change of direction before If We’re Following the Light and new way out bring her set to a suitably dramatic conclusion.
Poppy with Evanescence @ The O2
By the time the lights fall for Evanescence, the scale changes completely. The stage erupts into a vast, cinematic environment of towering screens, shifting imagery, moving platforms, smoke, fire, strobes and carefully timed bursts of spectacle. Yet the production never manages to overwhelm the person at its centre. Amy Lee remains the focal point.
Behind the piano, at the microphone or moving across the stage, she possesses the kind of presence that makes an arena feel intimate. Her voice remains the defining instrument of Evanescence, capable of moving from vulnerable restraint to a full-bodied roar without ever sounding like an exercise in vocal gymnastics. Around her, Troy McLawhorn, Tim McCord, Emma Anzai and Will Hunt provide a formidable wall of sound, the five-piece sounding every bit as muscular as the production surrounding them.
And then comes the new material. Sanctuary, the title track, opens the headline set, followed by Tell Me When You’ve Had Enough, Afterlife and Rapture. It is an audacious opening sequence because it asks an audience steeped in the band’s history to immediately embrace the present. They do.
The decision to play all but one of Sanctuary‘s songs gives the evening a very particular identity. Rather than dropping a couple of new tracks between the greatest hits, the Little Rock five-piece effectively build an entire second chapter of their live history around their sixth LP. The songs are not treated as unfamiliar interludes; they are given the same enormous production, conviction and emotional investment as the material that made the band a household name. That makes Sanctuary feel less like an album being promoted and more like the next essential chapter in the Evanescence story. With only How Do I Heal absent, this is emphatically not a band looking backwards. The classics are still here, but they now sit inside a much larger, evolving picture.
When Going Under arrives, the response is predictably enormous. Lithium follows, its melancholy given plenty of space before the evening takes a particularly poignant turn.
“So, believe it or not, this year makes 20 years since our second album, The Open Door,” Lee tells the crowd, sounding almost as surprised by the passage of time as everyone else. To mark that anniversary, Evanescence perform Like You — a song from The Open Door that Lee explains is the one track from the album they had never previously performed live. It is a beautiful choice, and one that gives the anniversary more meaning than simply revisiting the obvious singles. The heavier material then takes over again. Self Destruct and Calm Down hit with punishing force before Call Me When You’re Sober turns the entire arena into a chorus.
When K.Flay returns to the stage for Fight Like A Girl, the chemistry is immediate. The song provides a welcome reminder that this new era of Evanescence is also about collaboration and a willingness to step beyond the band’s established boundaries. Beautiful Lie and Wasted On You follow, but it is Forever Without You that changes the atmosphere most dramatically.
K.Flay with Evanescence @ The O2
The Arkanasas-hailing frontwoman moves behind the piano, stripping away much of the machinery around her and allowing the emotional core of the song to take centre stage. Introducing it, she speaks directly to anyone who has found themselves trapped in a damaging relationship. She tells the audience that they are not “bad” or “stupid for loving someone”, but that they do not have to stay. “It is terrifying and impossible, as it may seem, to take that first step out of the door with a bad situation,” she says.
Evanescence @ The O2
It is one of the night’s most affecting moments because Lee does not present the song simply as a performance. She turns it into an act of solidarity. For an artist whose music has always dealt in emotional extremes, there is something particularly powerful about seeing that connection between performer and audience become so direct.
Then the arena explodes again. Bring Me To Life is, inevitably, colossal. The opening notes are enough to trigger an almost physical reaction from the crowd amid a growing sea of phones raised to film every second, and Lee rides the song’s familiar peaks with the same authority she has brought to the new material. Imaginary follows, before Better Without You and About Us drive the set forward.
Evanescence @ The O2
Then comes one of the night’s biggest surprises. Poppy appears alongside Lee for collaboration track End Of You, but this time there is another unexpected presence: Courtney LaPlante of Spiritbox. The three voices converge on the song together, making this the first time the trio have performed it live as one. It is an extraordinary collision of three distinctive vocal personalities, and the moment feels completely at home within a show that has spent the evening refusing to be confined by its own history. Lee makes sure to acknowledge both guests, praising Poppy as an “amazing, amazing, amazing” friend of the band before the arena erupts once again.
Courtney LaPlante & Poppy with Evanescence @ The O2
The final stretch is emotionally devastating. Who Will You Follow brings the evening back to Sanctuary, proving once more that the new material has earned its place alongside the classics. Then My Immortal arrives and the enormous arena suddenly feels remarkably small. Thousands of phone lights rise into the darkness.
Lee stands before them, taking in the sight, before encouraging the audience to hold their lights aloft. For a song that has lived in the public consciousness for more than two decades, it still possesses the ability to stop the room in its tracks. There is no attempt to manufacture the moment. Lee simply lets the song breathe.
Before the final song, she takes time to thank the people who make the whole operation possible — the crew, whom she jokes “never sleep”, and her bandmates Tim McCord, Troy McLawhorn, Will Hunt and Emma Anzai. Most importantly, she thanks the audience. She talks about the last 24 years of returning to the UK, about the light and life the fans have given back to the band, and about how they have shared “your best, your pain, your loss”.
Because Evanescence are no longer simply the band who made the songs that defined their earliest years. They are now a band able to look back at The Open Door with affection, revisit My Immortal without being trapped by it, and still devote the overwhelming majority of a headline set to a brand-new album. That is what makes the Sanctuary tour so compelling. It is not a museum piece. It is not an exercise in nostalgia. It is a living catalogue.
And when Wide Open Heart brings the night to its conclusion, the title Sanctuary suddenly seems to mean more than an album, a song or a tour. For these fans and for the band themselves, it represents a place they have spent 24 years building together — somewhere to return to, somewhere to scream, grieve, celebrate and, ultimately, feel understood. At The O2, Evanescence do not simply provide shelter from the world. They make the entire arena feel like home.
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Evanescence @ The O2 (Kalpesh Patel)
Live review and photography of Evanescence @ The O2, London by Kalpesh Patel on 13th September 2026.
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