Only If For a Night: An Intimate Evening with Florence + the Machine
Florence Welch graced Los Angeles with her presence on Monday night to perform an intimate show at the Walt Disney Concert Hall to promote her upcoming album High As Hope. In 90 minutes, I was transformed from an admirer to a super fan.
Florence + the Machine: A Brief Introduction
Admittedly, I was late to jump on the Florence + the Machine bandwagon. I had heard and enjoyed hits like 2008’s “Dog Days are Over” and 2011’s “Shake It Out,” but only really got into the indie band when I decided to check out their 2015 release How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. I had read some terrific reviews and was impressed by the snippets I had heard online, so I downloaded it. I became instantly enraptured with the album and subsequently downloaded pretty much every song they ever released. I was officially a Florence + the Machine admirer.
My love for the band only increased in the past three years as I continually discovered new surprises and joys as I revisited their back catalogue; primarily, their platinum-selling debut Lungs (2009) and its platinum-selling follow-up Ceremonials (2011). Nearly every one of their unique and powerful compositions are marked by orchestral swells, satisfying hooks, breathtaking vocals, and lyrics that somehow convincingly combine painful truths, highbrow allusions, and entrancing imagery. In a 2011 article, Rolling Stone critic Jody Rosen described the band’s style as a mix of “classic soul and midnight-on-the-moors English art rock.” As utterly absurd as that description is, it’s the closest thing I have heard to an accurate take on the genre-defying band’s style.
The band is comprised of several stellar musicians, including keyboardist, producer, and co-writer Isabella Summers (whose nickname “Machine” explains the band’s name). But, it is 31-year-old English musician, singer, and songwriter Florence Welch who is the band’s voice, face, and soul. Her voice is described as mezzo-soprano, her songwriting has been described as “dark, robust, and romantic,” and her image is self-described as “The Lady of Shallott meets Ophelia … mixed with scary gothic bat lady.” (At least that’s her style on stage; in real life she’s “kind of prim.”) But ultimately, everything about Welch defies categorization, just as you might expect from someone whose self-proclaimed artistic influences and “heroes” are Stevie Nicks, Patti Smith, Kate Bush, Bjork, Grace Slick, Alanis Morissette, and 1970s drag queen troupe The Cockettes.
As brilliant and powerful as her recorded music is, Welch has always received her greatest acclaim as a live performer. From 2015–2016, she and the band went on a 10-month, 84-show tour that visited 4 continents and she has been a regular on the festival circuit with headlining stints at legendary gatherings like Coachella (where she famously broke her foot jumping off the stage) and Glastonbury (where she famously filled in for the Foo Fighters at the last minute after lead singer Dave Grohl was sidelined with an injury). Her astonishing vocals, commanding stage presence, and unpredictable and uninhibited style make her as exciting to watch as she is entrancing to listen to. At least that’s what I had heard. I had never actually had the chance to see her live until last Monday.
A Review of “Florence + The Machine at Walt Disney Concert Hall”
On April 26, Florence Welch announced a series of intimate shows that would be held at various venues throughout the U.S. and U.K. in May. A week later, we found out the impetus for these shows. The band’s new album, entitled High as Hope, was set for release on June 29. They announced one show in LA and demand for the tickets was so high that the website crashed when they went on sale. Thankfully I was able to find a ticket on the secondary market that didn’t require me to take out a second mortgage.
The concert was held at the home of the L.A. Philharmonic, the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown L.A. The $274 million architectural marvel, designed by the legendary Frank Gehry and renowned for its acoustics, opened in 2003 and has become a cultural landmark in the city. The intimate theater holds 2,265 people in a 360-degree arrangement around the stage. It is undoubtedly a venue more used to orchestral and chorale performances than rock concerts, so it was intriguing to see how the venue would handle Florence.
After a strong 30-minute set by opening act Perfume Genius (the stage name for Seattle-based musician Mike Hadreas) and a subsequent intermission, Florence and her seven-piece band took the stage. The 90-minute setlist consisted of 14 songs that were a perfect mix of highlights from their whole catalogue, albeit with a heavy reliance on sneak peeks of the upcoming album and energetic cuts from their most recent album.
Florence took command of the stage from the opening notes of “Between Two Lungs” (the slow-mounting cut from her first album that opened the show) until her final bow. She took the stage barefoot, auburn locks flowing, and donned in a pale, loose-fitting, ankle-length dress. She belted out her songs with passion, showing an impressive range from faint whispers to guttural growls (and everything in between).
But even more impressive than her classic look and stunning vocals was the sheer physicality of her performance. She danced, jumped, ran, and writhed across the stage (which was filled with gorgeous flower arrangements evoking a springtime hillside in Europe). She grabbed the heads and arms of those seated in the front row like she was presiding over a healing revival. At one point, as she performed standout track “Delilah,” she leapt into the audience. She ran through them, hugged them, danced with them, and at one point impulsively jumped on a ledge, apparently terrifying the sole bodyguard tasked with keeping her safe. He just couldn’t keep up with her. (Who could?)
But it wasn’t all chaos and bombast. Florence was equally brilliant in the intimate moments. In fact, when she spoke to the audience it was arguably even more jarring than the trance-like state she inhabited during most of her performances. The contrast between this larger-than-life performer and the seemingly shy, soft-spoken, and sentimental person is stark. She appeared genuinely thankful to her fans and more than willing to be self-effacing and vulnerable. She alluded to the dark times facing the U.K. and the U.S. and spoke openly about her internal battle between irreverence and earnestness. She encouraged the audience to put away their phones and connect with one another in a moment that could have seemed trite but was genuinely moving.
In one of the best moments of the night she previewed her ballad “Falling” by saying: “This is a song from my first record. And thank you so much to everyone who has been with us since then. It’s pretty much the same, I think. It’s just [that] I’m less drunk and there’s less glitter. Which may mean it’s worse, I guess. There’s the same amount of flowers as always, that hasn’t changed. But the drunkenness and the glitter is less. We’ll see. Tell me if you need more drunkenness and glitter. We’ll figure it out. But actually this is a song I wrote about falling over.” This meandering, humorous, and utterly charming introduction hardly prepares you for the lyrics that follow, some of my favorites she has ever written:
“I’ve fallen out of favor and I’ve fallen from grace
Fallen out of trees and fallen on my face/
Fallen out of taxis, out of windows, too/
Fell in your opinion when I fell in love with you./
Sometimes I wish for falling, wish for the release/
Wish for falling through the air to give me some relief/
Because falling’s not the problem, when I’m falling I’m at peace/
It’s only when I hit the ground it causes all the grief.”
The evening concluded with an encore performance of one of the band’s most identifiable, popular, and inspiring songs — “Shake It Out.” But never one for minimalism, Florence performed the rousing number with the help of the formidable Walt Disney Concert Hall organ (which, according to Wikipedia, contains 6,125 pipes!). When the number was over and she took her final bow, she was beaming. She seemed to know that she had knocked it out of the park. Hopefully, she also knew that she had converted at least one member of the crowd from fan to lifelong devotee.
Grade: A
Setlist:
- “Between Two Lungs” (Lungs)
- “Queen of Peace” (How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful)
- “Only If For a Night” (Ceremonials)
- “Hunger” (High as Hope)
- “Sky Full of Song” (High as Hope)
- “Dog Days Are Over” (Lungs)
- “Mother” (How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful)
- “Patricia” (High as Hope)
- “Falling” (Lungs: The B-Sides)
- “100 Years” (High as Hope)
- “Ship to Wreck” (How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful)
- “Delilah” (How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful)
- “What Kind of Man” (How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful)
- “Shake It Out” (Ceremonials)
