A salute to Florence Welch

Florence Welch by Lillie Eiger

"They present us with the tantalising mirage of un-alienated labour - work that is actually deeply satisfying - and leave us enviously speculating about their glamorous lives. After all, what may be a highlight of the summer for the audience, appears to be the everyday lived reality of the touring musician. What could be more intriguing and attractive than that?

The truth, of course, is more complicated. I know all too well that musicians face many of the same frustrations and fears as every other worker. On the question of alienation, those of us who tour are actually more removed from the collective - in some senses more alienated - than most. We may bring people together, but we do so as itinerants removed from society and placed in a bubble of tour-buses, hotels, dressing rooms and VIP areas." (Dave Randall, Sound System: The Political Power of Music)

"After our last chat in London, I was like 'Do I really need to stop for a bit?' But yes, this [the anxiety attack] confirmed it. It's sad because I feel at the peak of my performance, of my connection with the audience. There is something special going on in these shows, the exchange of energy. But my mental health has taken a battering. It used to be that that was a price I was willing to pay. I don't think I am now." (Florence Welch, Q Magazine, August 2019)

For those of us long time fans of Florence + The Machine, Florence Welch's announcement of her upcoming sabbatical in this weeks interview with Ted Kessler for Q magazine, was a sad one but not a surprising one. Florence has spoken about her anxiety before, not to mention the insomnia she often suffers on tour. The fanbase are aware of this, and, as she acknowledges in the Kessler interview, we often feel protective of her and of her wellbeing. The Flows are just that kind of a fanbase. That said, it probably says more about me than it does about her that my initial thoughts upon first hearing 'Hunger' in 2018 were "Are you alright Florence? I hope you're alright..." I then watched the interview she'd just done with Annie Mac to announce the High As Hope album and concluded that, yes, Florence Welch did seem to be alright at this moment in time.

There is a certain irony in the fact that the highly emotional quality of Welch's music, and live performance, provide a great deal of catharsis and comfort to her fans while, at the same time, exhausting her as a performer. That she enjoys writing, recording and performing is not in any doubt and, if you've seen her live, you will have seen moments of intense joy on her face as well as the occasional nervous moment. She is not the kind of performer who puts on a mask of perfection: She's real, and flawed, and that is part of the attraction.

Florence Welch by Lillie Eiger

But the relentless schedule modern highly successful artists are subject to would take its toll on anyone, and as someone who also has anxiety, even though I don't know the full details as to how anxiety manifests itself for Welch (we are all different in that regard of course), I can see why the kind of schedule she has would hammer her mental health. Florence + The Machine generally tour arenas for two years to promote each album, playing the UK, Europe, the US, South America, Australia and New Zealand (where Florence's insomnia seems to have been particularly bad this time) not to mention more festivals than I can count. It would be exhausting even without the anxiety, much, much worse with it.

Welch told Kessler "Even in the midst of a full-blown anxiety attack, I can do the show. There's a level of sensitivity that allows me to perform, but it makes functioning otherwise very hard. I don't have infinite resources, I've come to realise. I feel very sorry for the people who work for me because they're like, 'How the fuck do we get her from A-to-B?'"

She has cried on stage at times, and not always because of anxiety I don't think, sometimes simply because she is moved by the crowd's reaction to something she's said. But I also don't think that the fans find that to be a problem anymore than if she fell over on stage, which she's also done a number of times. My concern as a fan is not that Florence Welch shows she's human on stage, or in print, it's more... Is she OK? Should she be up there at this moment in time? Should she be at home on the sofa watching TV with her cat instead?

Florence + The Machine are playing UK and European festivals over the summer, including a return to British Summer Time in Hyde Park on 13 July, but the High As Hope tour will conclude in triumphant style in September with a final open air date at the Herodion Theatre in Athens, a very special venue to sign off from. After that, we wait.

Welch will be working on other creative projects, which is to be expected as she's never come across as the kind of person who could give up being creative. It will just be a different kind of work, and won't involve touring arenas around the world.

As she clarified for Kessler, she's not retiring. She just needs "to not tour for a good bit. I'll be back." Instead, she'll be exploring her creativity in other ways, as she did with Useless Magic last year.

When I started typing this post, I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing in writing this piece, and I'm still not 100% sure. But I admire Florence Welch's honesty and I wanted to acknowledge that: I think it takes a lot for a high profile performer to not only speak about mental health frankly (although more are doing so recently), but also to take the time to explain to the fanbase why she needs some time off. Before the internet, before social media, it was very common for artists to disappear for years at a time and for their fans to never really find out why until years later, possibly never. Admittedly, both the internet and social media specifically have altered our realities and social norms so much now that this simply isn't an option in this day and age, but I appreciate Welch's consideration to the fanbase all the same.

Throughout this blog post I've quoted liberally from Dave Randall's book Sound System: The Political Power of Music. I feel as though I've quoted Dave slightly out of context, and I'm hoping he doesn't mind because I feel the points he makes in the extract above are worth highlighting in this case. He writes from experience, having toured the world playing guitar with Faithless, Dido and Sinead O'Conner, amongst others. He knows what he's talking about.

Although Sound System is a history of the political power of music, it also reveals a series of home truths about the music industry and the realities of being a musician in the twenty first century. He concludes his book with a 'Rebel Music Manifesto', a call to arms for musicians and would be musicians, and I'd like to finish with an extract from that.

"Good art doesn't try to dazzle with its own brilliance, distract us from reality or parrot accepted wisdom and formulas of the past. It dares to honestly communicate how the person making it feels about their experience of the world around them. When an artist does that successfully, their art will resonate and touch the lives of others. Honesty is key even - or perhaps especially - when times are hard and the message bleak." (Dave Randall, Sound System: The Political Power of Music)