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Remember Evanescence? You know, the one with that goth female lead singer with the haunting voice? Well, they’re back, and with a bang.

Wednesday night the band performed a secret show at the Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom in New York, reports rollingstone.com. A little after 9 p.m., the crowd started growing impatient, chanting, “EVAN-ES-SCENTS, EVAN-ES-SCENTS.” And even though the band hasn’t been heard from in years, you wouldn’t know it from their performance.

And as their front woman Amy Lee explained, last night’s intimate show was quite necessary, considering Evanescence will be performing for 40,000 people at the Maquinaria Festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Nov. 8. So, Lee said, they needed a little warming up before heading south.

“Thanks for being our guinea pigs,” Lee joked to the predominantly female crowd.

Evanescence hasn’t put out a record since 2006’s The Open Door, but they’re currently hard at work on a follow-up album. Still, it’ll be another year before the band is back performing in New York, making last night’s concert a special treat for their dedicated fans, who sold out the show in just five minutes.

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Former EVANESCENCE drummer ROCKY GRAY is unable to comment on the circumstances that led to his leaving the group, because he claims to have been served a gagging order.

The band’s singer Amy Lee has reassured fans Evanescence will continue following the weekend departure of drummer Gray and guitarist John LeCompt.

But Gray insists he has been warned not to mention how he came to leave the band.

He writes on his website: “Amy Lee’s management emailed me last night to tell me that, in their view, the contract I signed to record, perform and tour with the group says I’m not allowed to have any free speech in regard to Evanescence.

“The way they spin it, I’m not even allowed to say I quit the group, I guess. But the news is out there, so, there ya go.

“I need to have a lawyer read over all that mess to tell me what, when and how I can tell you all – the real fans – what really went down, if I ever can, haha.”

As previously reported, LeCompt has also hit out at how his career with Evanescence came to an abrupt end.

Writing on his internet blog, he said: “Without any warning or legitimisations for my future, I was fired for no good reason.”

Both Gray and LeCompt now plan to concentrate their energies on offshoot act Machina.

(c) 2007 WORLD ENTERTAINMENT NEWS NETWORK LTD. All global rights reserved. No unauthorized copying or re-distributing permitted.

EVANESCENCE singer AMY LEE has reassured fans the group will continue following the weekend departure of guitarist John LeCompt and drummer Rocky Gray.

The Going Under singer has posted a message to fans on her website confirming the split and insisting that upcoming tour dates with Korn on the Family Values trek will go ahead as planned.

She writes, “Evanescence is something I have loved and nurtured since I was 14 and I will continue to protect and fight for it as I always have… Stay tuned for more news on that front. And don’t worry about the tour, guys. Nothing will be cancelled and we will see you soon.”

The group’s next show is scheduled for May 19 at the Rock on the Range festival in Columbus, Ohio.

Writing on his internet blog on Saturday, LeCompt suggests his departure from the group was not pleasant.

He says, “Around 3.30pm yesterday I received a call on my cell from Amy. This call wasn’t from a friend who appreciated me, but from an enemy who was prepared to hurt me and my family.

“Without any warning or legitimizations for my future, I was fired for no good reason.”

LeCompt and Gray now plan to concentrate their energies on offshoot act Machina.

(c) 2007 WORLD ENTERTAINMENT NEWS NETWORK LTD. All global rights reserved. No unauthorized copying or re-distributing permitted.

EVANESCENCE frontwoman AMY LEE has leaped to the defence of troubled pop star BRITNEY SPEARS following a hurtful web video soundtracked by one of the band’s hits.

A fan of the rock group posted a spoof film of Spears on file-sharing site YouTube.com, using one of Evanescence’s songs in the background.

But singer Lee is adamant neither her nor her bandmates endorse the clip after “everything she (Spears) has been through”, and is begging the amateur moviemaker to take down the short.

Lee insists her music was never intended to inspire projects “based on getting enjoyment out of someone’s pain.”

(c) 2007 WORLD ENTERTAINMENT NEWS NETWORK LTD. All global rights reserved. No unauthorized copying or re-distributing permitted.

Evanescence went from being a little-known Little Rock, Arkansas act to one of the biggest rock bands in the world in 2003.

Then, in the midst of their growing popularity, guitarist Ben Moody quit, almost a decade after he and Lee started the band. Bassist William Boyd departed this summer.

“I kind of started over,” Amy Lee, the lead singer of Evanescence, told andPOP at the MuchMusic Video Awards this summer. “I feel really good and purified right now.”

With the lineup change came a new method of writing as well, as Lee and Moody used to co-write. On “Anywhere But Home,” the band’s second album, due out in October, Lee was on her own.

“I’ve gained a lot of confidence from when we were writing the first album. I listen back and I hear vulnerability and I hear me as a kid, like ‘everything’s wrong and I’m not going to do anything about it.’ And now I kind of am coming from this perspective of, yes, these are the things that are bothering me and I’m writing about them, but I’m looking for a solution and trying to fix it instead of whining about it.”

Like any artist releasing a debut album, Lee had no idea what was in store for her when “Fallen” was released in March of 2003. As it turned out, the album sold over 14 million copies worldwide and earned the band two Grammy awards. And while some artists may let the success get to their heads, Lee appears more confident and more humble.

“It’s really important not to base success on album sales and money,” she said. “I love what I do and I love my record and I love my first record and that’s what matters.”

Gothy rockers Evanescence have announced a new North American tour for this fall, with Toronto and Montreal leading off the string of dates.

Billboard reports that the tour begins on October 5 with a stop at Toronto’s Kool Haus. The band will hit the Metropolis in Montreal the next night, before jetting off for three weeks of shows in the U.S.

In the middle of the tour, the band will take a short break to head south for a performance at the MTV Video Music Awards Latin. It’s being held on October 19 in Mexico City.

Tickets for the tour (which features purposely intimate venues) go on sale August 19. They’ll return to play for bigger crowds in 2007.

Evanescence’s new album, “The Open Door,” is set for an October 3 release in North America.

Catch the band this October across the continent:

Oct. 5: Toronto (Kool Haus)
Oct. 6: Montreal (Metropolis)
Oct. 7: Boston (Avalon)
Oct. 9: New York (Hammerstein Ballroom)
Oct. 10: Philadelphia (Electric Factory)
Oct. 11: Washington, D.C. (9:30 Club)
Oct. 13: Detroit (State Theatre)
Oct. 14: Milwaukee (Eagles Ballroom)
Oct. 15: Minneapolis (the Quest)
Oct. 17: Chicago (Avalon)
Oct. 21: Dallas (McFarlin Auditorium)
Oct. 22: Houston (Verizon Wireless Theatre)
Oct. 24: Denver (Paramount Theatre)
Oct. 27: Phoenix (Celebrity Theatre)
Oct. 28: Los Angeles (Wiltern)
Oct. 29: San Francisco (Warfield Theatre)

It’s a headache for Evanescence.

As of Wednesday, a judge has approved an order to refund customers who bought copies of the album, “Anywhere But Home,” from a Wal-Mart store in Maryland.

The agreement, according to reports from AP, partially settles a lawsuit filed by a local couple, who claim the copy they bought at Wal-Mart contained explicit lyrics but didn’t contain a parental advisory sticker.

Trevin and Melanie Skeens of Brownville are suing Wal-Mart for deception, by selling the album to consumers without a warning label.

The refund offer applies to those who purchased the album before Jan. 1.