After eight long years, Evanescence’s absence from Manchester came to an end as the Arkansas alternative metal group made the mother of all returns. Like a fighter who’s come back from a long-term absence, the reception was just as thunderous, and the addition of Poppy as a special guest made it even more exciting.

K.Flay took responsibility for setting the stage for the evening as the opening act and delivered well. Her approach to indie/alternative rock was a nice way to get the audience settled in, but her performance was far from relaxed. Spitting out protest lyrics left and right, there was nothing but passion flowing through her veins as an animated K.Flay used every acre of a ginormous stage to her advantage, making sure that fans stayed fired up for the rest of the night. What stood out the most was her incredible versatility. She could switch between screams, clean vocals and rapping in the blink of an eye, naturally adapting to every new section of a song.

Poppy doesn’t need much of an introduction. Her rise to becoming one of the biggest names in metal in recent years has been extraordinary. From becoming the first solo female artist to be nominated for a Grammy Award for ‘Best Metal Performance’ to collaborating with the likes of Knocked Loose and Spiritbox, Poppy’s become quite a force to be reckoned with. Not to mention an outstanding seven albums in nine years. Fresh off the back of a headline tour earlier this year, it almost felt like we were getting another one as she effortlessly blazed through a 55-minute set. Many singers need to shout at crowds and tire themselves out to make their presence felt, but Poppy has this special hypnotising onstage persona that doesn’t require dramatic choreography to steal the spotlight. There’s a sense of sass and mystery to her character, which is what makes her so likeable.

Moving onto her musical side, she didn’t put a foot wrong. Her ability to randomly change vocal types is impressive and it comes across in such an effortless manner that it makes you want to concentrate on her even more. Other members though also sounded sharp. Alexa Lynn and Johnuel Hasney excelled on guitars with some chunky riffs that nicely filled the arena and Ralph Alexander got us bouncing by tidily blasting some aggressive beats out of his kit.

Having last visited England in 2022, co-headlining alongside Within Temptation in only a handful of cities (Leeds, London and Birmingham), Evanescence had no excuse to dodge the North West, especially with brand-new material to showcase. Like Poppy, Amy doesn’t need to sprint everywhere and call for attention, as her persona comes alive all by itself in many forms, particularly through her voice, which does most of the talking. Adapting her voice perfectly to different types of timbres and textures according to what each tune evokes is something only someone born to sing can do. One minute she’s belting her heart out, and the next she’s delivering a melancholic ballad. So much so that songs like ‘My Immortal’ had some fans near me visibly moved, whereas ‘Bring Me to Life’ sent waves of ecstasy everywhere, and before you knew it, Co-op Live had turned into a sing-along fest.

Despite Amy’s beyond exceptional performance, their set was unfortunately marred by a poor instrumental mix, which definitely spoiled parts of the night, no matter how hard I tried to make sense of both old and new tunes. The drums in particular were horrendous, as every beat sounded echoey and delayed, making it difficult to differentiate what was going on at any given moment. That itself was a real shame because Amy was the only one who sounded crystal clear, while the guitars getting swallowed up by bass frequencies only made things worse. Within those limitations, I could still see and just about hear that Will (drums) was doing a good job, as were Troy, Tim (guitars) and Emma (bass), but the sound was so bad that it’s hard to praise even the most talented musicians in scenarios like these.

Aside from all the technical difficulties, everyone on the bill gave Manchester a night to remember, and hopefully Evanescence will be back soon enough with (fingers crossed) a mix that can please both fans and critics.