So last night was the Evanescence concert at Challenge Stadium, with ‘special guest’ according to the ticket. Special guests turned out to be Shihad, but the suspense was killing me for a little while there.

We arrived at Challenge Stadium to a long, long, line of traffic, and we were being pointed in the direction of the bush by the very bored traffic attendant. I almost thought he was pointing us into said bush just to see what would happen. More on the wonderful Challenge Stadium parking later though.

We got to our door, number 1, just as Shihad were starting to play their set. We didn’t know it was Shihad at this stage, see were the suspense was coming from, I tell ya, how did I survive. The security team were checking bags, and so on for anything resembling recording equipment, glass or food. All phones had to be switched off, and cameras ‘cloaked’, whatever the hell that means. Seeing as I didn’t want a cloaked camera, I kept it in my pocket. Through out the night anyone pointing a camera in the direction of the stage got a flash light pointed out at them, and stalked for a little while by a security person.

Once past security team 1 we got inside a dark Challenge Stadium and you were on your own. Can’t find your seat, TOUGH, but I should save my complaining about Challenge Stadium event management till later. After being gently nudged forward by the coming crowd behind we found someone holding a torch, and eventually got to our seats.

Shihad played a pretty energetic set, at least the singer was energetic, I think the other band members were bored, or some sneaky stage hand put super glue on their shoes, as an early April fools joke. Having said that, the crowd weren’t that responsive to our poor skinny leg jeans wearing singer, they were there to see Evanescence and only Evanescence, when he asked everyone to yell ‘hey’ through the whole song, we managed about 30 seconds. Towards the end of their set a now shirtless singer travelled into the arena and gave some love to the people on the left side seats. Shihad departed after this, praising Perth for being a ‘rock crowd’ and leaving us to wait for the main event.

All the lights came on, and the stage clearing, and setting up began. We were introduced to a roady, let’s call him Bob, who was testing the microphones. There was much praise from Bob of Perth beaches, and our beautiful town. Bob soon left us, wanting more I might add, to the emptiness of the black curtain covering the stage. Oh the drama.

After about a 30 minute wait, the lights switched off, to a deafening roar of the Perth crowd. We were left waiting, anticipating, salivating (maybe?), the curtain slowly rose, I do mean slowly too, I think someone is in trouble for that, the band just ended up coming out in the end. The first song (if memory serves and wikipedia is right) was “Sweet Sacrifice” from The Open Door album.

They played a good mixture of songs from the new album and some of their older songs too. Even throwing in a quick cover of ACDC “Highway to Hell” and Korn. There was never really a pause in their set either, once one song was finished, bam, straight into the next song. The only slow downs, so to speak, were when the piano was brought out.

The set went for over an hour and a half, and then we were thanked, again for being the most awesome, and that we were the best show in Australia yet. It is possible we were the first, but I’m sure she says that to all the crowds. It made us all feel special anyway.

When the band went off stage, people were cheering, feet were banging through the stadium seats, calling the band back out. After much cheering they caved to our needs, and came back out for another two songs, mainly just Amy Lee, with the piano.

Giving my last concerts were Mudvayne and Static X/Ill Nino, this was certainly a different pace, but the concert was good, the audio sounded just like it would on CD, Amy Lee can certainly sing, and twirl, my she can twirl. Over all it was a good Christmas present and a good night.

Now Challenge Stadium, tisk tisk. Getting out of the event was hell. Our very bored uninterested parking attendants from before must’ve put cars in all of the exits because it was pandemonium trying to get out of the bush parking that we ended up in. Cars were facing in every which direction and we weren’t going anywhere. We were lucky because one chap found a bush route our section took, frankly I’m surprised the Civic didn’t get stuck in said bush track, but we were free to go after that. Looking at the huge lines of cars trying to get out though when we passed, others weren’t so lucky. If your going to have a big event like this, you should probably get your act together when it comes to parking Challenge.

Wanted to put some photos on this post, but because of the security teams which I mentioned before, I didn’t want my camera ‘cloaked’ so you’ll just have to imagine.