Florence + The Machine

Florence + The Machine

There is no warm up at a Florence + The Machine show. She and her band come out and proceed to immediately decimate everything. Between billowy white clothes and a paisley scarf hanging from her mic, Florence Welch might look like she’s going through her hippie phase, but that’s a feint, because even if it’s benevolently, she’s here to conquer. She opened with “What The Water Gave Me,” right into “Ship To Wreck” (a standout from her new album), right into “Shake It Out.” I mean, who does that? Any of those songs could easily be rightful and powerful closers, but, hey, let’s just not let anyone breathe right off the bat. (In fact, Florence and her band generated a little too much power at times, with the sound constantly sputtering out under the speakers on the left side of the stage.) Throughout, Welch basically sprinted back and forth across the stage, jumped down near the crowd multiple times, ran the walkway splitting the pit from the rest of the crowd like, four or five songs in, and was always somehow able to get back to where she was supposed to be and deliver another one of those choruses. “She’s awesome, she’s off the chain, she’s bananas,” a photographer in the crowd said in awe and sheer enjoyment. Even having seen her last week at Governors Ball and knowing what to expect, there was still no real preparation for how much of a live force Welch is, still no real answer for the one recurring question: How can one person have this much to give?