It’s a Tuesday night in Montclair, New Jersey, and despite the fact that it’s freezing outside people are lined up outside to get into the Wellmont Theater. People have traveled from across the state and even across the country to see this show; tonight on this freezing November 22nd, Evanescence, a rock band from Little Rock, Arkansas, is performing.

This is exciting for many because the band had been on hiatus since 2012 and had been playing several shows now since April 2015. So, for many people it was an exciting experience to see the band performing live again, and this time with a new line-up as the band had added another female member to the band, guitarist, Jen Majura.

I have been a fan of the band for several years now and seeing this show was beyond exciting for me because I had never had an opportunity to see them perform live before. I was attending the show if two of my friends, one who was also seeing them for the first time as well, and one who had seen them in the past. We were all excited to hear lead vocalist, Amy Lee live, and interested in how this particular line up would be as the band has always had a changing line-up, with Lee being the only original member to remain since the beginning.

The journey to Montclair did not go very well that night though; when we left, our GPS lead us into a mass of traffic and we did not arrive until 8:30 p.m. and the show had an 8 p.m. start. Thankfully though, there was an opening act, alternative rock band Veridia. We had gotten tickets for the floor level so we knew we would be standing in a huge crowd of people and the theater was relatively small so there wouldn’t be much room to move. So, when we finally got onto the floor we were stuck in the back, but we were able to get closer after Veridia ended their set at 8:45.

As the floor began to getting more crowded we grew more anxious for the lights to go down and Evanescence to come to the stage. At 9:15 the waiting was finally over as the lights went down and music began to play. The first song that they played was “Everybody’s Fool,” a track from the band’s first full length album, “Fallen.” The crowd knew all the words and everybody was singing and rocking out to it, “Never was and never will be, have you no shame, don’t you see me, you know you’ve got everybody fooled.”

The songs that stood out for me in particular for the remainder of the show included “Lithium,” “Imaginary,” “Call Me When You’re Sober,” “My Immortal,” which left me and my friends a little emotional, and of course probably the band’s most well-known song, “Bring Me To Life.”

After the encore, where they covered Michael Jackson’s 80’s hit “Dirty Diana,” it was sad to know that the show was over, but it was great to know that I was able get tickets to see Evanescence at this small venue was a blessing because I had finally gotten the chance to see this amazing rock band with two of my good friends who were also big fans of their music. Evanescence showed that night that even after over a decade and with a regularly changing line-up that they still know how to get a crowd excited and they still know how to rock out.