Florence + The Machine Review
Double NME award winning Florence and The Machine arrive in Newcastle ready to wrap up the final night of the first sold out tour of 2012. First band up, Spector, a London band, embarking into massive arenas. With a thudding bass and massive tracks worthy of festival performances; Lay Low is great track that brings the audience alive, a one of those hands in the air jobbies. Lead vocalist Frederick Macpherson warms up the crowd and seems very eager to get off the stage and into Newcastle town centre enjoying "a good mixer at TigerTiger". Closer Never Fade Away resembles Noah and The Whale with is mellow calming start before lurching into a more upbeat sound drawing the audience into a rush of screams and applause.
Main support band, The Horrors, are in one word, horrific. If they had a track worth listening to it was drowned out in the mish mash of instruments that appeared to be each member doing his own thing. Massive bass and eccentric on stage behaviour gives them good footing to be incredible live but they just lack the presence. There's no interaction with the crowd and each song blurs into the next without introduction which is a disappointment because there were at least a couple that had some potential. With a mumbled 'hello' and a mumbled 'goodbye' their set is over in a flash and it seems like it was one track that lasted a good 45 minutes.
It is of course, not the support bands that have thousands of people cramming into seats or into the floor space, nope, everyone here is assembled for one person, Florence Welch. Opening the set by emerging in a tassel covered cape of sorts from a massive stage piece that lights up as she rhymes out Only If For a Night. In childlike fashion she storms around the stage before giggling into the mic as she introduces next track What the Water Gave Me. Cosmic Love is a big hitter where almost everyone in the area are on their feet, there's the flash of camera phones across the venue as the singer runs to each side of the stage, singing her heart out. It's easy to say, regardless of if you're a fan of the indie band, that Welch has a voice. Bashing out hits Breaking Down and Leave My Body as well as a wonderful acoustic of Heartlines where I'm sure a few dedicated fans in the front row shed a tear.
Commenting a lot on the fashion choices of the girls in the audience gets a lot of free flowered headbands and Primark necklaces with birds on them. Killer track No Light No Light closes the set with Welch's 16 second note, made famous on Radio 1 by Scott Mills' obsession with the singers ability to hold a note for longer than 15 seconds, keeping the audience holding their breath for the singer. Leaving the stage to a thunderous applause that makes the floor shake with appreciation, the band exit to the right before retuning minutes later when the rowdy crowd of Geordies want more. The encore consists of You've Got The Love in which every single person really does "throw your hands up in the air" and jumps about like crazy. Final song Never Let Me Go sees a bunch of girls being hoisted up onto the shoulders of their friends, their boyfriends and occasionally random strangers. The lyrics are screamed back and there are smiles on the faces of every single person.
Love her or hate her, it's hard to deny that Florence Welch has a voice and that she's added that voice to some of the best instruments to make a band that have such an incredible sound, and this is only the beginning. The only way is up and Florence + the Machine can only get better.