Back in June, Florence + The Machine returned from a year-long break from the music industry with their third album ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’, gaining them their third number one. The album release was followed by the news of a 12 date UK and Ireland tour, though nobody had any idea that the tour would follow a triumphant Glastonbury Festival headline slot after a cruel trick of fate left Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl with a broken leg, bumping Florence + The Machine up on the bill.
Returning to the Manchester Arena for the first time since the ‘Ceremonials’ tour in 2012, Florence skipped on to the stage to the superb ‘What the Water Gave Me’, diving in to what can only be described as a strong, crowd pleasing set that covered all three albums. Tracks such as ‘Ship to Wreck’ and ‘Spectrum’ had the crowd going wild, with slower tracks such as ‘Mother’ and ‘Delilah’ drawing in just as much emotion and enthusiasm from the awestruck crowd.
Florence Welch has an incredibly graceful and majestic stage presence as she skips barefooted from side to side, spinning like a dancer from a music box with her hair flowing behind her. At only four songs in she’s leapt off the stage and sprinted to the seats at the back of the arena; though securities worst nightmare it was a beautiful thing to see as she high fived and shook fans hands, accepting flowered headdresses along the way which she wore on several occasions throughout the show. When Florence took a break to speak it was to thank the crowd in her softly spoken voice, expressing just how much their support means to her and the band. Before ‘Shake It Out’ she asked the crowd to fill in for the absent choir that she would have loved – of course the crowd happily obliged as they helped Florence in one of the most powerful performances of the night.
Ironically, one of the new album tracks is titled ‘Queen Of Peace’ – well, Florence IS the Queen of Peace. Whether she’s thrashing about centre stage to the sensational music from the rest of the band towards the end of ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’ or shaking her fists in the air during ‘What Kind Of Man’, she’s an absolute pleasure to watch. When she charismatically requests that everybody in the crowd takes an item of clothing off and waves it in the air during ‘Dog Days Are Over’, it’s impossible to refuse and there’s topless males and girls in bras everywhere, with Florence receiving enough clothing thrown on stage to kit her out for the remainder of the tour.
The night came to an almighty end with ‘Lungs’ track ‘Drumming Song’; one of Florence + The Machine’s more dark and brooding tracks. With backlit red lights, Florence delivered another passionate performance as she put all of the energy she had left in to lines such as ‘louder than sirens, louder than bells, sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell’. I firmly believe that everybody in that sea of 21,000 people left Florence-struck and craving more.
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