Florence + The Machine

Florence + The Machine

Even with the dissolution of borders between pop and indie and all that, it’s striking to step back and think about the prominence of Florence + The Machine. Florence Welch’s choruses have some cosmic or chemical power to overwhelm and uplift, but even with that, it’s sort of a bizarre sight to see this group up on the main stage of Governor’s Ball with a field of people losing it while Welch flails around to somehow thunderous harp outros, to hear thousands of people sing along to songs that can sound like long lost druidic rituals. This was my first time seeing Florence + The Machine, and everything people say is true. When you hear Welch’s voice erupt over this kind of crowd, I don’t think it’s possible to not feel it in the core of your being; these songs are so overdriven, so massive, so refreshingly and willfully committed to high drama instead of the kind of restraint or smaller-screen glories that so often pervade the indie world. The setlist split the difference between highlights from her recently released third album, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, and older material, with “Ship To Wreck” and “What Kind Of Man” sitting comfortably alongside live warhorses like “Drumming Song,” “Only If For A Night,” “Shake It Out,” and — of course — “Dog Days Are Over.” Throughout, Welch was in prime arena frontwoman mode — running around the stage despite her recent broken foot, singing in a way that makes you swear she must leave some chunk of her soul in the air of any show she plays. You don’t get artists this magnanimous every day, the kinds who play music that can feel like a matter of life and death. –Ryan