Lacuna Coil - Falling

Memory's a funny thing. I was sure I'd seen Lacuna Coil opening for Cradle of Filth around '96 or '97, but apparently they opened for Moonspell in '98.
The '90s were very formative years for me, those pre-internet days where you really had to do your homework if you wanted to find out what's new. Those were the years where I read the most magazines as well.
Let's see - late '80s, early '90s I was way into skating and metal and comics and horror/sci-fi movies and videogames, so Thrasher was a must for my skating related news, Metal Hammer was my go to choice regarding heavy music, I wouldn't know of Wizard until about '93 or '94, and the only stuff I'd ever had in the way of comics news were some Amazing Heroes back issues I'd found somewhere, though by that time they were horribly dated. My horror and sci-fi fix came through Fangoria and Starlog, and videogames came through a number of different sources, including, Edge, Mean Machines, Computers + Videogames and a couple of others I can't recall anymore.
And let me tell you something - all of these mags cost a pretty penny back then, and considering that in '91 my folks split up and all that middle-class living I'd enjoyed so far became a distant memory, I had to get... how shall I say this? let's go with 'creative', in how I acquired them.

There were a few stores here that specialized in the import of foreign magazines, from wrestling to computers to cars to health to whatever. They literally had hundreds of them at any given time. These stores were especially vigilant, they had cameras all over the place and the price tags had alarms on them. I quickly learned that I could peel them off easily, and with the aid of a nifty folder I carried with me, I could conceal them quite easily, and abscond with them just like that.
Over the years, it is possible I might've taken quite a large number of magazines home with me.
I know, for shame. The follies of youth, eh?
Anyhoo, around that time something started catching my eye - the early issues of a new magazine called Terrorizer. Words can't begin to describe how instrumental this mag was back then - though very rough around the edges in its inception, it still proved a veritable treasure trove of new bands for me to find out - both good ones and bad. I'll never forget the 'five star' review Frater Nihil gave to Diabolical Masquerade's 'Ravendusk in my heart', naming it an essential listen, and I rushed out to get it as soon as I could, only to absolutely dislike it.

And yet, ads from labels such as Century Media, Spinefarm, Cacophonous, Music For Nations, Peaceville, Nuclear Blast and so many others were my very first insights into a number of bands I'd come to follow, one way or the other, lo these many years.
Lacuna Coil were billed as the new, defining voice in Gothic Metal, and I absolutely loved their first E.P. - still do, in fact, that's why I had to grab Alone Records recent vinyl issue. What they did afterwards left me a bit cold, but that's ok - that's why you have the memories of the good stuff to tide you over.