A brief, baffled discussion of mermaids and sirens in music

As regular readers will be aware, the release of a new Florence + The Machine song tends to be a bit of an event. It's especially an event if it's been signposted and hinted at for weeks beforehand by:

Exhibit 1: A TikTok of Florence Welch striding through what appears to be a churchyard in full winter coat, dress and boots while singing about how England is "Only ever grey or green" over a heavy synth track.

Exhibit 2: A TikTok of Welch in the bath in full mermaid tail, complete with fangs, singing in her highest, most eerie register.

I don't know who is orchestrating the Florence + The Machine publicity campaign for Dance Fever, and it's related tracks, but, bloody hell, they like to tease. 

Anyway, 'Mermaids' was released yesterday.

Coming in at just over four and a half minutes, it's a highly cinematic dark synth pop opus delivered in five acts which includes possibly my favourite lyric of the year so far:

"Hugging girls who smelled like Britney Spears... and coconuts"

In 'Mermaids', Welch is clearly drawing parallels between some of the more sinister mythic and folkloric depictions of mermaids and sirens and the activities and attitudes of drunken young women on a night time blitzkrieg around town.  

Girls who glitter while "Striding glorious and coatless in the rain" well on their way to a "Cheerful oblivion" that Welch misses despite herself.

In making this link, she also (it is assumed) unwittingly reminded me Honeyblood's 'Sea Hearts': A song about two young women having an equally boozy night out on the town, which also references mermaids and sirens, and which is well served by the accompanying video in which a mermaid emerges from the sea and goes to a house party/bachanalia in Glasgow. 

"We're the breakers and the waves" sings Stina Tweeddale "And we break hearts, break hearts, break hearts that get in our way"

I've been trying to come up with other examples that combine the fearsome qualities of drunk young women with the equally fearsome qualities of mermaids and sirens, but I haven't come up with any more yet. Should any suggest themselves to you, please let me know.

Songs of sirens and mermaids in the more general sense go back through the decades, centuries and millennia: From the sirens who sang in order to shipwreck sailors in Homer's The Odyssey, to a folksong about mermaids that seems to have existed in the early 20th Century in both the US and UK, to 'Song To The Siren' (both the Tim Buckley original and This Mortal Coil cover version) and - in recent years - more cuddly singing mermaids such as Disney's Ariel (The Little Mermaid) and Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monk's The Singing Mermaid, adapted as a theatre production for young children by Barb Jungr and Samantha Lane in recent years. 

Naturally, the beautiful but sinister mermaid and siren have a long history in art and literature more generally: As both Florence Welch and Stina Tweeddale are no doubt aware. And it's been fun to dive into it in anticipation of this blog post.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, fellow Florence + The Machine fan InkLungs has made a Spotify playlist on the theme of sirens and mermaids. 

Songs of the year, number 13: Florence + The Machine, Light Of Love

Originally written and recorded as part of the sessions for the fourth Florence + The Machine album, High As Hope, 'Light of Love' was a previously unreleased track that Florence Welch chose to release in April 2020 as a fundraiser for the Intensive Care Society, donating 100% of her royalties. 

In-keeping with the themes of High As Hope, 'Light of Love' is an unflinchingly honest ugly-beautiful slice of self examination, the brutal lyrics contrasted by the delicate baroque pop and choir like harmonies of the musical arrangement and orchestration. An unusual choice for a charity fundraiser, but one that - weirdly - seems to work. 

Florence + The Machine - Light Of Love

Florence Welch has made me cry again.

'Light of love' is a song that was recorded during the sessions for 2018's High As Hope album. It was left off the album and was released on Friday by Florence as a fundraiser for The Intensive Care Society, with 100% of her income from the track going to the charity.

While an incredibly harrowing song on one level, detailing as it does alcoholic blackouts, panic and anxiety and near death experiences, it's also really quite a hopeful song. There is a real sense of resolution and a desire to change as the song progresses.

Thematically, 'Light Of Love' seems to sit somewhere between the guilt and recrimination of 'Grace' and the Florence Welch who ruined her sisters birthday with her acid fuelled antics, and the honest tales of misspent youth detailed in 'South London Forever'. It's sadder than 'South London Forever' (ultimately a wry, funny look at her teenage years in Camberwell) and it's at least as sad as 'Grace' (the song from High As Hope that tends to make me cry the most), but there's an echo of 'Grace' in the line about crawling into her sister's bed after a dose of the horrors, saying 'I think I did too much'. It ends with the repeated affirmation that, haven't learnt to face facts, and face the world, "I must not look away".

Musically the song reflects the stripped down nature of the High As Hope sessions as well as it's searingly personal themes, but I feel like I understand why it wasn't included on the album. Much as I would have loved 'As Far As I Could Get' to have been included on How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful in 2015, I recognise that in the case of both songs, they would have disrupted the musical flow of their respective albums. Assembling an album, and getting the running order right, is an artform and part of the art is deciding what to take out as much as what to put in.

Cosmo - Midnight

I first heard this song about... three months ago? I can't remember how I came across it, but I'm pretty sure that a random Spotify playlist was involved...

I did what I often do on Spotify, which is to file it away for a later date to listen to distractedly while doing other things, or else be stopped dead by.

This was one of the 'be stopped dead by' ones.

"That sounds a helluva lot like Florence Welch..." I thought.

There isn't really anything about Cosmo up online if you search by the band name and song title, and searches are hampered by there being an Australian band out there called Cosmo's Midnight, so I've only just found out that... I was right. It, um, is Florence Welch singing, and that Cosmo's 'Midnight' basically lives in a weird algorithmic space on YouTube with various slightly obscure/less well known Florence + The Machine tracks such as 'Paper Massacre', 'Conductor' and 'As Far As I Could Get'.

Given that the identity of the vocalist on this track has been quietly driving me mad for at least a month now, it is good to know that I was right, but... Had I trusted my instincts and typed the band name, song name and 'Florence Welch' into my search engine at the time, I would have found this out a lot faster. As such, I probably am the last person in the Florence + The Machine fan universe to figure this out. (Looks mildly embarrassed in a pleased kind of way)

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)

Running up to Record Store Day 2019: Part three, the most expensive singles I have ever bought

Years ago, if you'd told me that I'd pay £35 for a 12" single and £18.99 for a 7" single, I'd have been speechless.

But I have.

Both of today's singles were Record Store Day special edition releases by Florence + The Machine.

Of course they were...

It perhaps says something about my relationship with Record Store Day that I didn't camp outside a record store all night/morning to buy them.

I bought the 2015 Record Store Day release of 'What Kind of Man' in late 2016 via Amazon, having discovered that the B Side was 'As Far As I Could Get', an almost Patti Smith esque, tense stream of consciousness that is both perfectly executed and an absolute masterclass in controlled despair and rage.

You can't buy this track any other way and, having heard the bootleg of it on YouTube, I had been trying to track it down for about a year. The 12" was waiting for me in the hall after I got back from having my second tattoo done.

The 2018 Record Store Day release of 'Sky Full of Song' was purchased via Piccadilly Records, and I picked it up from the shop about a fortnight after Record Store Day 2018 had taken place.

Piccadilly Records basically advertise those RSD releases they still have left on their website after the event, and they're available to order/reserve on a first come, first served basis. Which was lucky for me in that I was still working at the library at the time and, as such, would have needed to book the Saturday off work to queue up outside the shop to get it otherwise.

I know that the queueing up with your list is kind of the point, that it's all part of the experience, as are the DJ's and in store appearances, but I only wanted that one record and, as such, didn't want to use up a day's annual leave to secure it.

As it was, I went after work one day to pick it up, a journey I will always remember for two reasons: I was body slammed by a a woman at the crossing by Newton Street in a particularly disturbing instance of pedestrian chicken gone wrong, and the person who served me at Piccadilly Records very kindly complimented me on my My Neighbour Totoro bag.

The 12" is pressed on milky blue vinyl and the 7" is pressed on a storm cloud grey milky vinyl. Shades of grey and white. It perfectly compliments the black and white video that was made to accompany 'Sky Full of Song'.

'Sky Full of Song', while not the lead single from High As Hope (that would be 'Hunger'), was the first single to be released from the album. As such, it seemed apt that the B Side to the single would be a spoken word piece by Welch, namely 'New York Poem (for Polly)', which would later feature in the book Useless Magic, and which gave the album High As Hope it's title.

There was a kind of synchronicity to this, given the way that poetry and lyrics, book and album, are so intertwined. Similarly, 'As Far As I Could Get' is the perfect B Side to 'What Kind of Man'. It's the quieter, sadder, side of the situation, it speaks of pain in a quieter way, but is equally as strong and ferocious for all that.

Moderation

Florence + The Machine have been teasing fans in preparation of the new single, 'Moderation', for a couple of weeks now on social media. The band are on the Australian leg of the High As Hope tour at the moment, and phone footage of them performing the song live quickly leaked out. What was equally tantalising, not to mention funny, was the repeated changing of the title of the song on set lists. 'Meditation' was one, I think 'Train Station' might have been another...

But the mystery is over now, and 'Moderation' has arrived.

On one hand, it sounds nothing like any of the tracks on High As Hope, but on the other hand it is definitely pure Florence + The Machine, with Welch very much in touch with her soul girl side but also employing a trademark ferocity and emotional honesty. The two combine in a song that, structurally, feels very 1960s Stax soul record but which has a core darkness to it that feels almost like a sonic exorcism. In this sense, it's very apt that the B Side is called 'Haunted House'.

I think this is going to prove to be an absolute triumph of the live set. The clips that have leaked out suggest it's going down well too.

Florence + The Machine High As Hope tour: A fan essay

Florence Welch by Lillie Eiger

Upon leaving my day job at the end of July, one of my goals was to go to all of the Florence + The Machine High As Hope UK dates, and to write something about following the band around on tour, ideally meeting other fans as I travelled from gig to gig.

That didn't happen, for a number of reasons, and maybe it was just as well given that I went on to be very poorly in-between the two gigs I did go to. At least I had a great time though.

The band began their tour in Leeds on Thursday 15 November, and my first encounter with them came the day after on the Friday night in Birmingham. I'd been comparatively late getting my ticket for this gig, thanks to having already purchased two tickets for the Manchester Arena gig. For financial reasons, I then needed to wait a couple of weeks for my friend Bethany to refund me for her ticket so that I would have the money to buy myself a ticket for one of the other shows.

I had been aiming for Glasgow, purely on the basis that I've never been to Glasgow and always wanted to go, but it was sold out, as were most of the other shows by then. The only ones that weren't were Leeds, both nights in London, and the gig in Birmingham. In each case, there were hardly any tickets left and the remaining tickets were all for seats right at the top of the upper tier.

I considered Leeds, it being geographically the nearest of the three locations and, at a push, it might not have required a hotel booking because a late night train journey would have been doable. But the seat that was left didn't look worth it. It was a similar situation with the O2 in London, plus the hotel bill would have been huge in that case. The remaining seat in Birmingham looked marginally closer to the stage in the seating plan, and I felt that the hotel bill was likely to be cheaper as well so I went with that.

One of the problems with depression (and to a certain extent with anxiety as well) is that there are tasks, often relatively straightforward tasks, that you keep putting off and putting off because you just can't face doing them. There was a Twitter thread in the summer that someone put together on this theme, and the writer dubbed it The Impossible Task: You know you have to do it, it's not that hard, but for some reason, you just can't bring yourself to do it. Booking a hotel in Birmingham was my Impossible Task. While booking the gig ticket was relatively straightforward for me, working out my hotel and booking it took me a month. Which meant that most of the hotels near the Genting Arena had already been booked up by then, what with the gig selling out and everything.

I think my dread of travelling to Birmingham might have had something to do with it, in that Birmingham is one of those cities that tends to defeat me geographically. I find it very easy to, if not actually get lost, lose locations in. I've only been to the city once but I vividly remember spending an entire Saturday morning wandering around the city centre, trying to find their big new library. I kept going round and round the Bullring, getting further and further away from where I was meant to be going. Given that the Genting Arena is located in the complex around Birmingham International Airport, rather than in the city itself, I was hoping that the whole experience would be less of a geographical headfuck.

Needless to say, I was wrong: It was probably worse. I won't go into all the details but I will say that it took me a good hour to find my hotel, which is quite something given it's located about ten minutes from the train station. In my defence though, the route you have to take to it is not exactly obvious.

A lot of Florence fans were staying at my hotel, and the staff were evidently used to this, and to the corresponding rush on food ahead of the gig. I left for the Arena at about 7pm, hoping like hell that I could A) Remember the way to the Arena and B) Remember the way back to the hotel after the show.

The Genting Arena is rather like Manchester Arena inside, albeit with a different floorpan. There were food stalls everywhere, and the merch stand was all over flowers and looked lovely. After much deliberation I purchased the tour t-shirt because I really love that Pre-Raphaelite esque Tom Beard shot of Florence Welch in her pink dress.

Florence + The Machine, High As Hope. Cover by Tom Beard.

My seat was four rows down from the very top to the right of the stage, and getting up to my seat was such a faff that I found myself thinking 'I'd better stay here to the end of the show, no bloody way will I ever be able to locate this seat again'.

Florence + The Machine came on around 8:45pm, to much roaring and applause, particularly when Florence emerged wearing an ankle length pink chiffon dress, her hair down. They started with the epic and atmospheric 'June', then went straight into 'Hunger' and 'Between Two Lungs'. I think Florence was feeling nervous as she didn't speak until after the third song, when she said hello and asked everyone to stand up (hurrah!), just before going into 'Only If For A Night' and 'Queen of Peace'.

She talked to us for longer just before 'South London Forever' when she started to explain, and apologise, for talking quietly, but that she was shy "You wouldn't know it to watch me, but I am". She was explaining that she was trying to get better at the talking thing when someone yelled something and she broke off, laughing. Apparently he'd yelled "SEXY BITCH!" which she found funny rather than offensive, and she dealt with lightly and with good humour.

She then talked about 'South London Forever' and it's theme of teenage debauchery: "In the US when I say 'teenage' they think '18', but over here we know we mean '13'" as well as it being a home town salute to Camberwell. She also made an earnest, sweet, slightly bumbling speech about how much has changed since she saw us three years ago, but how hope is a force for good, and she got us to hold hands "Just to make it as hippy as possible".

Later, in my diary, I wrote "I love Florence Welch. She is amazing. Even when you've got a seat nearly at the very top of an arena, she makes you feel like she's singing and talking to you alone." Which really represents the atmosphere of the show, but particularly during 'South London Forever'.

The band followed 'South London Forever' with a mesmerising semi acoustic take on 'Patricia'. Before the song commenced, Florence made the Patti Smith connection explicit, and she also explained that the bit in the middle is about "toxic masculinity", which "isn't a problem in here" Earlier she'd remarked that there was a "very good energy, a very female energy" in the arena, which she liked, and in the speech before 'Patricia' she made it clear that she feels Florence + The Machine fans don't have any problems supporting women, which went down well.

The perennial anthem that is 'Dog Days Are Over' was dazzling and euphoric, with mass audience participation in the way of clapping and singing along. Florence asked us to put our phones away and to hug each other, which, amazingly, my section of the audience did.

'100 Years' and 'The End of Love' both stood out as being particularly mesmerising, and there was a suitably rousing version of 'Ship To Wreck' in-between the two. Florence got everyone to switch their phones on and hold them up to create a sky or stars for 'Cosmic Love', and the result was very pretty: A sea of little white 'stars'.

She went crowd running during 'Delilah' and followed it with some crowd bonding during 'What Kind Of Man'. It was interesting to watch those two songs on this tour compared to last, as I got a sense of how the songs have changed emotionally for her. She seems free of that time now and, as such, those two songs don't feel as visceral or as dark as they did three years ago.

Birmingham's Genting Arena, a sky full of stars for 'Cosmic Love'

When they left the stage at the end of the set, there was so much drumming of feet and clapping of hands that it sounded like an earthquake. You could feel the floor shaking beneath our feet.

They came back on and did the brooding 'Big God' and uplifting 'Shake It Out', and Florence persuaded the audience to be her choir in the latter case, which added to the sense of euphoria.

It took so long to get out of the seated section that we could see men in hard hats and hi vis dismantling all the gear on stage as the Arena staff swept glitter and plastic pint pots across the floor in the standing area with huge industrial brushes.

Then it was the slow moving hum of the crowd through the Arena, to the outside air, while trying to figure out which way to turn in order to get back to the train station. I followed the crowd, and studied various signposts while thinking "This doesn't look like the way I came in." At last I spotted a familiar bit of scenery and was relieved to realise that I was going the right way. Then it was up the stairs into the station, across the bridge, down the escalator and out again, now trying to remember how I'd successfully found my hotel in the end. I made it fairly quickly, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the same route as last time.

The Florence + The Machine gig tiara in Birmingham, with diary

Following just over a week of medieval plague (or a particularly virulent throat infection if we're being accurate) combined with vertigo, I started Friday 23 November on a very low point, standing hunched over the kitchen sink, having a major coughing fit that ended with me being sick. A horrible way to start the day.

I had travelled to Birmingham for the previous week's Florence gig knowing I was coming down with a throat infection, but it hadn't really started by Friday morning so I expected that I'd be OK. And I was. Until the wee small hours of Saturday morning when the infection kicked in with a vengeance and I experienced a perfect storm of symptoms.

Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep in Birmingham on Friday night/Saturday morning and, what with having an extremely sensitive throat by morning, approached the serve yourself breakfast area with definite wariness: When you're at the hypersensitive throat stage of a throat infection, you tend to divide foods up into soft and scratchy foods. That said, even a single red lentil can cause merry hell with my throat when I'm really bad, so beyond yoghurt, blended soups, and ice-cream the world of food can become very unfriendly indeed.

I managed a weird breakfast of fruit, very carefully eaten cereal with lots of milk, and shedloads of fruit juice and mint tea. Then I got ambitious and nearly choked on a yoghurt.

Feeling decidedly fed up now, I figured I might as well pack and get a slightly earlier train home than I'd planned. I don't think I really saved much time by doing that though because I had to wait 40 minutes for a direct train to Manchester from Birmingham International, and when it arrived it was rammed to the gills. And remained so until Stoke.

You know it's a bad train when you can't even sit in the luggage rack because people have beaten you to it. I thought the worst was over after Stoke but, no, because what seemed like the entire population of Macclesfield under the age of 25 got on at that station and I then had to fight my way through them all to get off at Stockport.

A Virgin Cross Country train coming into Stockport in 1998. By Ryan Taylor, via flickr.
Used according to a creative commons licence. 

Just under a week later and I was feeling moderately better, despite the coughing fits, oh, and I had hardly any voice whatsoever, making communication a major challenge.

I'd booked the two tickets for Manchester Arena way back in May, in the fan pre-sale that took place two days before tickets went on sale. I was still working my day job at that point and, because both the pre-sale and the actual sale started on weekdays at 10am, I'd concocted a plan that involved diving onto a staff laptop at morning break and hoping like hell there would still be some tickets left.

In the end though, I was off sick on the day of the pre-sale and was so exhausted that I wasn't sure I could drag myself out of bed in time for it. The result being that I booked my tickets for Manchester Arena at the table in the kitchen, in my dressing gown, after breakfast, bang on 10am. "That was easy" I thought, feeling too relieved to be excited, and promptly went back to bed.

Bethany, who I was going with, had wanted seated tickets whereas I'd wanted standing. I was happy to accommodate her but, in the end, the decision was made for us by the pre-sale: By the time I got to the ticket selection stage of the process there were no two seated tickets left for Manchester Arena that were next to each other. Standing it was.

Bethany happened to be off sick that day too so she didn't get my email until the next day when we were both back in work. We'd already spent an entire day a few weeks previously deconstructing the video to 'Hunger' when we should have been working, now we were both very excited about the Arena gig.

As it turns out though, it wasn't Bethany who I ended up going to the Arena with. A few weeks before the gig, she texted me to let me know that she couldn't come. I did consider selling her ticket for her but she was adamant that I should take someone else. I decided to ask David.

Earlier in the year we'd spent a happy afternoon at Pear Mill, ogling vintage that neither of us could afford, and one of my first social engagements after I left my job in the summer had been a day out in Marple with David. It ended with us sitting outside in the sunshine in his back garden, reflecting on the simple things in life.

8th Day were holding a Christmas Meal in December and, while texting him about that, I asked "Would you like to see Florence + The Machine at Manchester Arena on the 23 November?" It felt like a bit of a long shot but, on the other hand, he does really, really like Patrick Wolf, and I've always felt that Florence + The Machine and Patrick Wolf are essentially two sides of the same coin.

"I'd totally be up for it" he replied "I haven't been to a gig in ages, never mind an Arena show".

We were on.

David hadn't seen Florence before and, because I felt it would help him to enjoy it more if it was a surprise, I deliberately didn't tell him what to expect. I just said "They are not your typical Arena band". Which might have been a bit wrong of me, given that I've yet to see anyone else in an Arena setting. But somehow, I do think I'm right. I really don't think anyone else approaches an Arena show in quite the same way as Florence + The Machine.

Florence Welch by Vincent Haycock

On the morning of the 23rd I had some back and forth with David via text re what you can/can't take into the Arena, and the day disappeared quite quickly after that. He was teaching that day so I'd arranged to meet him at 8th Day at 5pm for tea and we'd walk over to the Arena at 6pm, which is when the doors opened.

Once in we admired the merch and people watched for a bit before watching Wet. We were nearish the front, but not too near. We didn't want to push and shove our way through.

Florence + The Machine came on at 8:45pm and, as I expected, it was the same set as at Birmingham. While Florence was her usual sparkling self, I think the energy was different to Birmingham, probably because Birmingham was only the second date on the tour, but also because the crowd energy wasn't quite as wild in Manchester as it was in Birmingham. It was still high, just not quite as wild.

Florence very sweetly mentioned in her intro to 'South London Forever' that her brother in law is from Manchester and that her two year old niece was here: They were introducing her to her Mancunian roots. It was interesting hearing Florence talk about how it's been "A bad few years" since she last saw us, as it had a different kind of connotation in Manchester Arena than in Birmingham. It felt much more about the Arena bombing than about Brexit and Trump. I'm not sure how well her message of hope went over in that context, because thinking about the Arena bombing probably put people on edge in a way that Brexit and Trump probably don't (ie; you can be furious about both but the pain is different), but her message was clearly sincerely meant and, I think, appreciated.

The crowd in the standing section were great. David made friends with a guy with two women in front of me, and I made friends with the girl next to me when we held hands during 'South London Forever' and I hugged her during 'Dog Days'. Everyone was fully into it and going for it. Which is ultimately why I wanted to be in the standing section in the first place, truth be told.

Florence talked, both in Manchester and in Birmingham, about how grateful she was to the fans for taking and understanding her songs over the past ten years, and how it means a lot to her because we understand even when her family, friends, partners don't.

I think a great example in Manchester of that understanding was the rapturous response 'Hunger' received in the standing section, with everyone singing along and jumping up and down. Given the subject matter of the song, and Florence's initial hesitancy to release it, that felt very powerful. In the same way that the collective singalong of 'Shake It Out' is pure joy, and Florence orchestrating the perfect in the moment bit, minus phones, in 'Dog Days' is lifting it up to a higher plane.

When Florence went crowd running during 'Delilah' we spotted her a couple of times in the seated sections, then she re-appeared at the back of the standing section, raised up above the crowd, possibly on someone's shoulders. Afterwards she went down to the front of the standing section for 'What Kind of Man', pressing heads with members of the audience.

The encores were 'Big God' and 'Shake It Out'. After 'Shake It Out', and after Florence had said goodnight and look after each other, we could see her hugging and talking to people at the very front of the standing section, closely watched over by security.

Afterwards, David said how much he'd enjoyed it. He loved what Florence was trying to do by way of creating a collective emotional experience, and he loved how into it the crowd were. The whole thing seemed to have moved him very profoundly and we talked about it as we walked back to Piccadilly.

It's very hard to put the impact of a Florence + The Machine gig into words, but it is a deeply emotional experience, which is why I think it resonates so much with those of us in emotional and mental turmoil. It's also perhaps why a lot of (especially male) music critics don't get it: Florence Welch is moving us on an emotional level, in a sincere and non manipulative way, by saying and singing about things that often feel very personal. Pain. Rage. Hurt. Delirium. Fear. All the extremes, including extreme joy and being out of control. Anyone with anxiety and depression can relate to that.

She has changed since I last saw her live: She seems more comfortable with herself, happier, less scared, less hurting. Not everything has changed though: She is still the politest person I've ever seen on stage, and she still comes across as someone who can't quite believe that they get to do this for a living.

Florence Welch by Vincent Haycock

It is interesting to watch her being explicitly feminist and slightly political. I don't know if the events of the past two years have driven her to it, or if it's that she now feels established enough to risk saying what she thinks. It could be both. It's not as though she's spoken about #MeToo on stage, or said "Fuck Brexit, Fuck Trump", but she's said enough, on stage, in song, on social media, in interviews for the fans to know how she feels. And that's OK.

There is something almost slyly subversive about watching her running about the stage in a sea of chiffon, her hair streaming out behind her, and having her talk about toxic masculinity and female energy.

In addition to The Voice, there's also that slightly lopsided charm about her that includes the ability to fall over on stage stylishly and a grin that lights up her whole face. The flaws, and the relatable realness of Florence Welch, are equally as much part of the charm as the talent is. And I think that's a good thing.

A devastating new album by Florence + The Machine

Regular readers of this blog will probably be used to me being extremely hyperbolic as regards the talented Ms Florence Welch and Florence + The Machine.

But, hand on heart, the woman has surpassed herself with the new album High As Hope.

In the past fortnight or so it has earned the accolade of Album That Makes Me Cry The Most Ever.

For a variety of reasons...

I have just published my review of the album, and Welch's book of poetry and lyrics, Useless Magic, over on The F-Word.

Writing about a band you love doesn't have to be difficult but I've found that it's best to take a very specific approach to the task. That is, to write as though writing for an audience who A.) Are not aware of the artist in question at all or B.) Are aware of the artist in question but are largely indifferent to them. I tend to avoid taking this approach to it's logical conclusion of C.) Writing for an audience who actively dislike the artist in question. Why? Because life's too short. If I achieve a change of mind in those folk by accident, fair enough, but I'm not going to actively try and force someone to like an artist they really don't have any time for.

It's important not to write in fan mode when reviewing bands you love, if only because that tends to mean incorporating a sort of fanbase shorthand that no one beyond the fanbase can understand, which is a massive turn off for those not in the know. Also, you can't just exclaim a lot of superlatives, it's more important to try to paint a picture of what the record sounds like for the benefit of the uninitiated, make it vivid and real to them. They're more likely to go off and listen to it if you describe, say, 'Cosmic Love' as having "Sledgehammer drums" and "Soaring vocals" than if you just saying "It's AMAZING!!!" but don't explain why.

I hope I've got the balance right with my review of High As Hope because, while Florence + The Machine are hardly an obscure, undiscovered band, I do feel at times that they are underestimated and under appreciated. Not taken as seriously as musical talent as they might be. There is a slight suspicion in my mind that Florence Welch's pre Raphaelite inspired image sometimes works against her in the confines of the traditional rock press, that she is somehow viewed as being too feminine to be appreciated by the 'serious' rock critics and rock fans. Or is it more the combination of a very feminine image with assertiveness rather than passivity? Femininity combined with sonically complex emotional music? I'm not sure, I just have theories and feelings about all of this, suspicions...

Women do seem to really get the band, and the music, as well as the image and I would say that, both times I saw the band live (on the last tour) the audience was probably about 60:40 or 70:30 female:male. This is not a bad thing by any means, in fact it does tend to make for a more interesting gig atmosphere from my point of view, but it does also position the band outside of the rock canon quite often.

Rolling Stone described Florence + The Machine as one of the best live acts around today during the last tour in 2015-2016, and of the band's upcoming UK dates four of the nine have already sold out. They continue to go from strength to strength.

Some critics get it, some critics don't.

But the fans remain true and loyal.

Image is the album cover to Florence + The Machine's High As Hope album. Photo of Florence Welch by Tom Beard.

Back to work again...

Unconventional writers desk, i.e. the kitchen table

I had actually intended to have the whole four days of the Easter Bank Holiday weekend off from writing, and have a mental health weekend, but instead I elected to dive headlong into a literary voyage and start reading all of the books on the reading list of Between Two Books, The Florence + The Machine book club. 

This is odd for me because I'm normally very wary of book clubs. I think it's because of having done an English degree and, while I always really enjoyed the socio-cultural discussions around the literature we were reading for the course, didn't actually enjoy many of the texts themselves much. The most profound, as in earth shattering, connection I had with a literary text that I was studying occurred right at the end of third year when we did Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis. Which, of all the texts to latch on to, is probably the most troubling one, and probably something I should be really, really worried about. It didn't worry me though: Not in the same way that identifying with Prozac Nation years later did anyway, but I digress...

What attracted me to Between Two Books was the list of books that they had already read: Since 2012, they have read books by, amongst others, Gwendoline Riley, Emma Forrest, and Jeffrey Eugenides. As someone who has previously been obsessed with (at different times) Sick Notes (third year of degree, pre Sarah Kane) and The Virgin Suicides (at 6th Form college: I found it in the library one day and devoured it instead of going to Media Studies, then forgot about it until the film came out, read it again, and became obsessed by it all over again) and who has a particularly vivid memory of reading Namedropper aged 15 when it had just come out, liking it, and playing the 'spot who the real indie/pop star is' with it, it seemed almost unnerving to discover that someone else, especially someone whose work has become an integral part of my life, has been reading the same authors as me, albeit different works and at different times.

What with having finally finished my punk women and fanzines chapter for MUP, and having hit something of a wall with the current stage of my punk women book, a dive into a literary hinterland, particularly over a four day weekend, felt irresistible.

And so it has proved!

I started Gwendoline Riley's Opposed Positions mid week, finished it on Friday, and almost immediately started Kirsten Reed's The Ice Age, which has been my favourite so far. I'm currently about half way through Emma Forrest's Your Voice In My Head, which I'm also enjoying, to my surprise, as I haven't really got into any of her other books, post Namedropper.

But, today, I resurfaced from my literature drenched hinterland/cave to listen to the punk ladies on Radio 4's The Reunion, inadvertently breakfasting to the tail end of The Archers omnibus in the meantime. The punk ladies taking part were: Gaye Black of The Adverts, Gina Birch of The Raincoats, Toyah Wilcox, Tessa Politt from The Slits, and Vivien Goldman. I don't think I gleaned anything new from the programme (as opposed to the one on French punk, which was a revelation), but it was interesting, and I'm glad Radio 4 did it.

Afterwards, I somewhat guiltily thought 'I should get back to sorting out those literary agent submissions for the punk women book'. I've managed to get some work done this morning, so it was worth pushing myself.

As with the punk women and fanzines chapter with MUP, especially at the re-drafting/checking stage, you end up doing a lot of niggly work that isn't massively interesting and is, frequently, quite depressing. I was telling Paul about this one Saturday on the bus home from work, namely about how I was spending my time trawling through books looking for examples of sexism in the 1960s counterculture and, specifically, in underground comix of the period. It was really easy to find examples too: Not to mention incredibly depressing.

My current depressing task is to locate examples of songs from the late 1960s/early 1970s that were big hits while being incredibly sexist. I don't think it'll be hard... I already have one in mind that I know is on a sixties Sunshine Pop compilation my mum has, and which always makes my skin crawl when I hear it. The rest of the CD is fine, just that song...

So that will be a task for today, and I can cheer myself up afterwards with the Emma Forrest book, or dance around the living room to let off steam again. Whichever...

I'm going to continue with Between Two Books I think, but only in the reading sense, not the discussion sense as I tend to find I get bossy in discussions and, besides, it requires a Facebook account, and I don't do Facebook or, indeed, Social Media. I don't think blogging counts as social media anymore...

If you want to find out more about Between To Books, you can find them on Twitter, on Facebook, and you can read an interview with Leah Moloney, one of the girls who runs it, over on The Guardian. There's also an interview with Florence Welch about Between Two Books, and literature more generally, on W Magazine's website as well.

Florence + The Machine - Lover To Lover

Florence Welch in soul girl mode.

This was Florence's second time working with director Vincent Haycock, who would later go on to direct the series of videos made to complement the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album that would come to be known as The Odyssey.

It is tempting to view 'Lover To Lover' as foreshadowing The Odyssey thematically as well as in a cinematography sense, but I think that's too simplistic.

It was the last single from the Ceremonials album though so, in that sense, it does provide a sort of link on.

Sounds of the times

This is a blog piece that is still coalescing in my head as I'm typing it.

I've been thinking a lot about music as the soundtrack to our times these last few weeks, mainly because there seems to have been a fresh engagement with political commentary in a music context since Trump was elected.



I think there were stirrings of it last year (Will Varney's 'To Build A Wall' and Aimee Mann's 'Can't you tell?' for example) as well as a number of musical projects/songs that directly referenced Black Lives Matter (Beyonce's 'Formation', the whole of Solange's A Seat At The Table, Lady Gaga's 'Angel Down'...), but post Trump's inauguration, a number of song's have appeared conveying a sense of malaise (Allred and Broderick's 'The Ways', which was released the same day as Trump's inauguration) or else anger (Arcade Fire and Mavis Staple's 'I Give You Power')

I clearly recall, a few weeks ago, in the days after the presidential decree banning those from seven mainly Muslim countries from entering the US, and the subsequent protests around the world it generated, looking at a new music playlist in Spotify and finding song after song after song that just seemed to really accurately represent the prevailing mood. These weren't songs written for that situation, they were just songs that already existed that seemed to fit the mood, songs like Karl Blau's take on 'Fallin Rain' or The Pop Group's 'Zipperface'.

I'm coming to the gradual conclusion that there are many facets to the thorny issue of music and politics.

There are outwardly, explicitly politically motivated songs, or protest songs. (From 'Strange Fruit' to 'This Land Is Our Land' to 'Mississippi Goddamn', to 'Ohio', to 'Free Nelson Mandela', to Father John Misty's 'Pure Comedy', which Piccadilly Records recently dubbed unnervingly prescient, and many, many others)

There are songs that were not written as explicitly political songs, or as protest songs, but which then acquire a political dimension later on due to circumstances. Kind of the proverbial 'Being in the right place at the right time'. The classic example being Martha and the Vandellas 'Dancing In The Street', which became the soundtrack to the Detroit riots in 1967, and the Specials 'Ghost Town', which was number one in the UK charts the same week as most of the 1981 riots were happening.

There are performers who do not have a reputation/image as political artists, who do not write songs that are directly political, but who are engaging with politics on an individual basis. This is a difficult one to write about because it's more of a personal issue for those artists when they're off duty than it necessarily is part of their image when they're performing and I hold the opinion that what musicians get up to when they're off duty is their own concern, not mine. On the other hand, if they write about it on Twitter, it's in the public domain, but it's also still in the public domain in a personal, off duty, capacity, but how realistic is that when the whole way musicians engage with their fans has irrevocably changed in the social media age?

Which is a very long winded way of saying that, while left leaning Kate Bush fans have recently been left reeling by Kate Bush's endorsement of Theresa May, I've been happily digesting Florence Welch's tweet in support of the women's marches and her endorsement of the emergency protest outside Downing Street on 30th January against Trump's muslim ban. This is on top of the way that, in the latter stages of Florence + The Machine's How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful tour in 2016 'Spectrum' became a post Orlando shootings gay solidarity anthem, and the way that Welch handled the bands headline set at British Summer Time in Hyde Park, coming as it did eight days after the EU referendum result and on the same day as a pro EU march next door in Green Park. Can an artist be subtley, personally political rather than outright explicitly, all the time political? How are these decisions negotiated on a personal level by the artist in question? How do fans react to previously unpolitical artists making political statements?

On an easier level, I was pleased to see the return of Harry Potter to protest culture again. He had a definite cameo in the 2010 Student Protests and popped up again on placards at some of the anti Trump protests in January/February. 'Dumbledore wouldn't have stood for it' was a nice touch. This kind of reinforces what I said in 2010, which is that Harry Potter has become a kind of universal protest figure, an anti establishment icon, possibly because the millennial generation hasn't had a lot of protest music to grow up with and because Potter has had a more dominant role in their lives than perhaps music has. That might be too simplistic, but, one thing the Harry Potter books did was install an entire generation of kids with a clear sense of right and wrong and a kind of anti authoritarianism that seems to be standing them in pretty good stead.

Gaga's back

Lady Gaga's new album, Joanne, is a strong contender for album of the year I'd say. We are in November after all, it's relatively safe to say these things...

From the ferocious, autobiographical, high octane pop of 'Diamond Heart' through to the haunting 'Angel Down', this is a typically sophisticated pop album from Gaga, one which draws strongly on the imagery and sounds of Americana.

Take the twangy guitar samples mixed in with crunchy beats of 'A-Yo', or the much more atmospheric American Gothic balladry of 'Sinners Prayer', the more subtle country power balladry of 'Million Reasons' (which, thankfully, emerges more 'Don't Toss Us Away' than 'Stand By Your Man') or - best of all - the full on berserk cowboy baiting pop blitzkrieg that is 'John Wayne'. This song is either the best Shania Twain piss take ever or a divine marriage of Americana and glitchy electro pop. And she makes it sound effortless and so, so easy...

Which is always the issue with pop, really: Gaga is full on pop, but below the surface, there have always been clever things going on.

There's a vague sense of unease in 'Diamond Heart', with it's lyrics of defiant go-go'ng on one hand, but the line "Some asshole broke me in, wrecked all my innocence" on the other, and vulnerability and tenderness in the lament for her dead aunt in 'Joanne', and then there is the powerful state of the nation dramatic pop opera that is 'Angel Down', which more than any of the other songs on this album hints at a disconnect with modern life.

There are songs to dance to here, none the least 'Diamond Heart', 'John Wayne', and the gritty electro moody minimalism of 'Dancin' In Circles', which sees Gaga touching herself "to pass the time" while muttering "Funk me downtown". There's also the surging, diamond hard pop of 'Perfect Illusion' and the boozy girls night in anthem that is 'Grigio Girls', an ode to the powers of friendship and Pinot Grigio, with a a suitably catchy sing a long chorus.

And then there is 'Hey Girl', Gaga's duet with Florence Welch. This is a slinky Prince and the Revolution style affair, which is structured almost like a phone conversation between the two of them. It has an agreeably positive message of female solidarity and, while not such an obvious musical link with the other songs on the album, it does work, with a real sense of collaboration rather than competition that enhances the message of the song.

The collaboration with Welch seems particularly apt when you consider that both women turned 30 this year, both felt the need to take some time off before starting work on their current albums, and both seem to have a strong sense of family, and absent family members, that influences their work on occasion.

While I would say that 'Hey Girl', 'Grigio Girls' and 'Sinners Prayer' are some of the strongest moments on here, it's the work tape version of 'Angel Down' that will reduce you to tears. While the finished version is haunting and elegiac, the work tape is much more stripped down, angrier, and grittier. It is very 2016, and it feels like the song to end the year on really, in so many ways, for so many reasons.

There is footage on YouTube of Gaga performing 'Angel Down' from a balcony at the final Hilary Clinton rally in early November, which adds an extra poignancy in many ways. If we take the year from November 2015 through to November 2016, we can see that it begins with France and ends with America. It feels no accident to me that my two favourite albums of that year are Chaleur Humaine and Joanne.

Sumer is icumen in

British Summertime Festival, Hyde Park, Saturday 2nd July 2016


Disclaimer: The time listed on each of these photos is an hour behind when it was taken. Blame the clocks going forward for summer...

I headed out at just after 10am from my hotel in Victoria to walk to Hyde Park for my first ever festival.

Please don't get the wrong impression: It's not that I'm squeamish about being outdoors, getting muddy and sunburned, it's purely that I spent my formative years of gig going pogoing to Bis and Kenickie and dancing around my handbag to the Yummy Fur. I come from an all dayers tradition of gig going, and without exception, all of the bands I've ever liked enough to see live have either split up before they got to the festival headlining level of success, or else continued but didn't achieve that level of fame. Hence, no festivals.

That is one thing with being a Florence + The Machine fan: They have taken me out of my comfort zone, gigs wise. When I saw them at Manchester Arena last year on the British leg of the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful tour, it was my first arena show. The biggest gig I'd been to prior to that had been Siouxsie and the Banshees at Manchester Academy on my 16th Birthday in 1995.

Friends find all of this very amusing when I try to explain it, and because I am such a festival novice, I sought the advice of my own festival guru and expert before attending British Summer Time: My friend Paul, who has attended just about every UK festival going I think, and has gained a wealth of experience and wisdom along the way.

Being a novice, I paid extra for a Priority Entry ticket to British Summer Time as I thought getting on site an hour before most people do would help me get used to the site. This kind of worked, up to a point, but I'm getting ahead of myself now...

I wasn't the first to get to the Priority Entry gate, there were about 15 or so other people there by the time I arrived at half 10, all looking a bit higgledy piggledy, with lots of people sitting on the grass, others standing. The area was divided into runs, for want of a better description, and you just picked a run and queued in it. I think the number of early birds took the security, and organisers, by surprise: It sounded as though that hadn't really happened on the Friday when Massive Attack had headlined. Either that or they simply hadn't encountered a large bunch of quietly earnest floral crowned and glitter faced people in one place before, that is, the Florence + The Machine Army. We were very patient, and that probably just made it all the more unnerving.

After a little while we heard a ghostly wordless lamenting wail on the breeze and sighed happily: Florence was doing her sound test. There followed three goes at 'Queen of Peace', a song I never tire of, and the crowd by the gate was growing, attracting the attention of all sorts of interested and concerned parties. When we were eventually let in, there was a funny moment when the newly released Florence fans pelted across the field, hell for leather, like gambolling lambs as security called, forlornly, after them 'Walk, don't run!'

The festival didn't open for anyone else until 1pm, so, having visited one of the remarkably sophisticated loos I meandered around the site, taking in what was where. I had worked out my schedule prior to coming down to London, using a website we won't mention, and had discovered that I wanted to see a cluster of four acts very early on, and that after that I had a bit of a yawning chasm, schedule wise, until Florence was on. Well, that's not quite fair... I did want to see some of the later bands, I just wasn't as bothered about missing them.

At 1pm I adjourned to the Great Oak Stage to watch a showing of Florence + The Machine's The Odyssey, the film made to complement and accompany the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album. I do like The Odyssey, but it excites a series of very complex emotions and responses in me. I've seen it in it's entirety about four times now (it is available to watch online), and I find it very hard to write about because I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

What I will say is that it is a beautifully shot film, with a central theme of self discovery and exploration. Florence Welch worked on it with Vincent Haycock, the director, and they devised a narrative based around the themes she was exploring when she wrote the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album, which has its roots in a central sadness of lost love and scary independence coupled with self discovery. There are a number of re-occurring motifs throughout the film: Dopplegangers, pressure, loving someone but being unable to be with them, immersion in water... It is a very powerful film, but because of its searingly personal roots and imagery, it's actually quite painful viewing in some ways.

At the same time, it also feels very truthful and luminous. The choreography makes more sense if you know that the inspiration came from paintings by Caravaggio (amongst others) and that this was then worked on and developed with interpretive dance (I'm not explaining this very well, but trust me: There is an interview with Florence and Vincent Haycock over on Facebook that explains it much better) and that this forms the language of the piece, along with the songs from the album. Once you start watching The Odyssey you're in for the long haul, and you are rewarded with a sense of catharsis at the end. I thought it would work really well on the big screen but, unfortunately, the ever changing light levels didn't go so well with the different light levels in the film, so some bits were hard to see.

Due to watching The Odyssey, I missed most of Kelsey Lu, who was doing a short set on the Barclaycard stage. I saw enough to know that I preferred her mournful, stark pieces with cello more than I did the songs with guitar, but she has a beautiful, pure, sweet and mournful voice. The songs weren't there for me yet I don't think, but that might just be me.

Blood Orange, from afar...

I watched a bit of Blood Orange from the field behind the enclosed area, then headed back to the Barclaycard Stage in search of a vegan food stall I thought I'd seen en route to Kelsey Lu, but in fact, never actually found again. I enjoyed Blood Orange, who were sort of soully with an edge, but a bit too cheerful for me at that moment as I was feeling a bit restless, and a bit hungry.

Georgia was bloody amazing though, as I knew she would be. She was on my 'Must Watch' list from the get go, and delighted in screaming at intervals during the first song, which shocked those lounging in the grass: Clearly this is not a girl you can lounge too.

It was just her on drums and vocals and her friend H, a girl whose calm smileyness belied Georgia's intensity, on keyboards and backing. They made enough noise for six people, and it's hard to describe what she sounds like musically, but she has an air of post grime about her: Very glitchy and aggressive sounding, sort of angry and slightly vulnerable at the same time.  She made reference to the pro EU march going on next door at Green Park and some anti Boris comments, both of which went down well. It seemed wholly appropriate, in the circumstances, that she finished her set with the storming 'Move Systems', making it sound harder and angrier than it does on her album. A storming set. The sound of Angry Young London.

Georgia (left) and H (right)

Poliça were on the Barclaycard stage next, and I took the opportunity to get some food before their set. They were a very cool band, there was a sense of ennui to them somehow, coupled with a polished and crisp sounding left of centre electro pop. It tipped towards industrial sometimes, probably on account of them having two drummers, but this only enhanced their sound in my view.  The singer/synth player was wearing a black hoodie with a McDonalds logo crossed through on the back and huge mirrored sunglasses. When she took the shades off, I was disconcerted by her uncanny resemblance to Gina McKee.

Jamie XX was doing good stuff on the Great Oak Stage, but I decided to watch from afar and retreated to a corner by one of the coffee shops to observe the way that entrance to the pit in front of the stage was being handled. It was so full that the security were operating a one in, one out policy, and people leaving couldn't be guaranteed to get back in. Not everyone took this well, and some people tried to get back in via the out route and were unceremoniously hauled out.

Then, part way through the set, it began to absolutely bucket down for about 10-15 minutes, before stopping as abruptly as it had begun. At this point I silently but fervently thanked Paul, over and over again, as I stood in my newly purchased waterproof cape and dubbin'd boots. Actually, the dubbin was my idea: I was fucked if I was wearing wellies.

Kendrick Lamar was up next, marking a time of recurrent queueing for me: The women's loos, the queue to which was so long that entire subcultures were good naturedly forming as we waited, then the fish and chip stall. I had in mind Paul's advice re how to ensure I got in near the front for Florence + The Machine, which was basically to get in two songs before the end of Kendrick's set and move forward as people leave. This was sound advice in theory but, alas, Paul had underestimated the tenacity and determination of the average Florence + The Machine fan.

I'd been keeping an eye on the queue for the pit for a while, and it was getting longer and longer and longer, much to the despair of security and despite the sign being held up by one of their crew, informing all and sundry that the pit was full. As such, having done two queues consecutively, I joined a third one and calmly ate my fish and chips as security tried to reason with us. I got in about two or three songs to the end of Kendrick's set, and the point at which his fans began to leave and the Florence fans began to surge into the pit represents one of the most frightening gig going moments in my life: A maddened horde of people pushing in different directions, each side getting ever more frantic because they couldn't get to where they wanted to be and were just being swept along - quite literally - on a human tide. One girl voiced her fear of falling and being trampled on to me, and I daresay she was not alone in that thought.

Eventually it subsided, and I ended up about five rows from the stage but, alas, at such an odd angle that it might as well have been 15 rows back. Well, you can't win them all... Of course, those who have seen Florence before know that she likes to venture into the crowd, hence the fevered push to get to the area in front of the centre of the stage. The pushing and negotiation of space (some people were nicer about it than others, it has to be said) continued for quite some time. Meanwhile, the security staff at the barriers were handing over cups of water to anyone who needed one, and instructing us to hand the ones we didn't want backwards to other folk in the crowd.

At about twenty to nine, the band began to slowly filter out onto the stage: Well, there is a lot of them. Florence emerged last, clad in a turquoise diaphanous dress that flowed around her in ruffles in the breeze. She had her hair hanging loose down her back and glided elegantly across the stage in a distinctly otherworldly manner, like a psychedelic dryad or fairy from a Maxfield Parrish painting.

The band began with 'What the water gave me', which only enhanced this thought. While the songs are the same songs, more or less, that the band have been playing throughout the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful tour, there was a sense of the set having been worked on extensively and honed to within in an inch of it's life, so that it was both confident and vibrant, enhanced rather than tired.

Audience members following Florence's urging to 'Get high with us' during 'Rabbit Heart (Raise it up)'

Florence went to great pains to connect with the audience, whether by slipping over to our corner of the stage to wave and smile, by having the audience act as the bands choir during 'Shake It Out', by descending into the crowd during 'Rabbit Heart', or by delivering an eloquent plea for the audience to let off the filming and photography during 'How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful'. She explained that she'd realised while travelling just how much time she spent looking at her phone rather than her surroundings, and added that she wanted to connect with us, the audience, on that particular song because it was a song that meant a lot to her personally, that it was a song she wrote while falling in love, the kind of falling in love that transfers itself to everything around you; places, moments, everything. And she wanted to share that with us. She asked us very nicely, and we were happy to comply, for which she thanked us enthusiastically at the songs end.

Following this Florence introduced 'Various Storms & Saints' by confessing that it was a song that she had campaigned to have taken off the album last year "Because I felt it was too sad". The band hadn't performed it at all on the English leg of the tour, so this would be the first time they'd played it at home. She wanted to do it because, she said, hearing the song sung back to her gave her a sort of strength to draw on, which was a sentiment I liked a lot. It is an incredibly sad song, but it's also very atmospheric and I'd been secretly hoping that they would do it live at some point, so it's inclusion here pleased me a great deal.

The surging 'Queen of Peace' took an unexpected turn towards the end of the song when about ten dancers slowly emerged on stage and, along with Florence, who had done singing at that point, performed a staggeringly good choreography sequence to an extended version of the song.

OK, my photography skills could do with some work... I gave up taking pictures after this one because it was distracting me from the gig and that was making me unhappy. Think Florence has a point re all the phones/cameras... Leave it to the professionals. There are some nice pix in this article

Just prior to 'Spectrum' she suddenly departed for backstage and the harpist had the limelight for a minute or two until she returned, now clad in a red version of the same dress she'd had on earlier, carrying a a rainbow flag. 'Repeat after me' she said 'Love is love is love is love...' The band then launched into 'Spectrum', and the crowd went berserk. It was exhilarating, and this sense of performer and crowd as one was enhanced when Florence pre-empted 'You Got The Love' with a very heartfelt speech on the theme of love and geographical variation: She said that she knew how far some people had travelled to be at Hyde Park, and quipped "some of us came all the way from South London", and asked that we take the love were were sharing and expressing tonight back out into the world afterwards, and share it with the world. Mid song, she made a peace sign. She didn't mention the EU referendum, or xenophobia any more than she'd mentioned the Orlando shootings before 'Spectrum', but in both cases, there was an unspoken understanding: She's not an overtly political performer, and I don't think we the fans really expect her to be. She makes her own statements in her own ways.

Just as we were still taking this in, the band launched into 'Dog Days Are Over', and we went berserk again, a blissful end to a blissful set.

The band left the stage, and the audience cried 'FLORENCE, FLORENCE, FLORENCE' until they came back on again, minus Florence who, in a nod to The Odyssey, was carried back on by one of the dancers from earlier, hanging limply in his arms. She was set down and began to intone the beginning to 'What Kind Of Man', a particularly electifying performance of which then followed, during which she made another foray into the crowd. At this point, a girl somewhere behind me in the audience lost her head completely and started shoving and charging her way through the crowd. Me and another girl let her through, but she didn't make it through to the front. Her sense of hysterical frustration was palpable.

The second encore was 'Drumming Song', which always goes down well and represented a suitably charged ending to an absolute blinder of a set.

Earlier, Florence had seemed a little startled and overwhelmed by the size and passion of the crowd, which only highlighted her incredible politeness on stage when we applauded and screamed. The set ended with her taking Rob the guitarist by the hand and dragging him forward, along with the rest of the band, so that they were all in a row, getting the applause together.

Getting back out of the pen wasn't quite as bad as getting in, though it wasn't fun. I was able to leave Hyde Park the same way as I'd come in, along with everyone else it seemed as we tottered blinking out into the bright lights of Hyde Park corner.

I can honestly say that I have never attended a gig as mindblowingly brilliant as that Florence gig, and I've been to some fantastic gigs in my time. Maybe not big, famous ones, but little brilliant ones that will always be a source of dewy eyed nostalgia nonetheless. But Florence + The Machine at Hyde Park has taken it to another level entirely: This was performance as Art.