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Florence and the Machine, Manchester Arena

  • Published in Live

Photos: Lee Hammond

Corporate, vacuous, soulless, all words that can be used to describe Manchester Arena. Housing a cool 21,000 when at full capacity, it's difficult to imagine any artist being able to make such a room feel intimate, yet that's exactly how the venue feels almost from the first moment Florence Welch takes her first barefooted step on to the stage.

Before even that however, alt folk three-piece The Staves prove to be in fine form. The huge spotlights of the arena are focused on the trio as they surround a single microphone; their respective vocals mergign in to one single texturous harmony; the nuances and subtleties of each composition somehow audible across the cavernous venue floor. In a testament to the band and their production, it's these vocals that are the stars of the band's set, and the understated instrumentation that accompanies them is worked so as not to overshadow the vocal track. It's fragile, and at times twee, but their set is impressive nevertheless.

Opening with 'What The Water Gave Me', Florence immediately sets about whipping the crowd in to a frenzy of ecstatic emotion. There are tears almost from get go, as the surge of sentiment she inspires in her fans becomes too much, whilst those who teeter on the brink of tears collapse in to floods with the early inclusion of 'Ship to Wreck'.

The sheer energy upheld by Welch throughout her set is something to truly behold, and it's only in the quieter, more introspective sections that she allows herself rare and fleeting moments of composure. Unsurprisingly, 'Rabbit Heart' is met with a huge response from her crowd, and, as if channelling their energies, Florence runs from the stage to the rear, finishing the track from one of the several stairways that ring the arena.

About two thirds of the way through, clearly drained of her energy, which up until this point seemed bottomless, the set takes a quieter, more refined approach. A trio of tracks in the form of 'Long & Lost', 'Mother' and 'Queen of Peace' allow Welch to remain almost stationary, instead exercising her vocal range impressively whilst giving her legs some much-needed respite. Unsurprisingly, it's a short-lived section, and the tempo is brought right back up with an impassioned and drawn-out rendition of 'Dog Days Are Over'.

Encores are part of the deal with live music these days, and even a band who play a decidedly mediocre show will disappear only to come back on five minutes later. Tonight there is of course an encore, but it's one that the band have deservedly earned, and though it's only two tracks long, the anthemic finale of 'Drumming Song' is in short, excellent. Many people turned their noses up when the band confirmed they'd be headlining Glastonbury, but if this is the kind of calibre Florence & the Machine are at barely three albums in to their career, then we can expect them atop the bill of many more festivals to come.  

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Festival Coverage: Leeds 2015 - Saturday

  • Published in Live

Still on a high from the previous evening, Saturday begins with a liquid breakfast and a trip to the Main Stage to catch LA's Mariachi El Bronx, who cheekily introduce themselves as “The Bad News Bears from Reno, Nevada” before immediately launching in to a short but perfectly executed set of Mariachi music. From the bemused looks on some faces there are several people here who would rather be watching the band's hardcore iteration, but the first act of the day, the likes of 'Right Between the Eyes' and 'Wildfires' make for a gentle and novel start to the day's proceedings.

 

Remaining on the Main Stage, the upbeat pop-punk of Wrexham's Neck Deep are more to everyone's taste, and despite the current controversy surrounding the band the devotion of their fans is evident. A plethora of circle pits open and close across the crowd whilst the bodies of crowdsurfers are flung mercilessly towards the stage to tracks such as 'Damsel in Distress' and 'What Did You Expect?'. You can't fault the band, nor the crowd for the matter, but for someone who has seen the likes of New Found Glory several times in the past, it's nothing groundbreaking.

 

Taking a breather we navigate back towards the NME stage in order to catch American Football for the second time this year. Unsurprisingly their set is comprised only of a handful of tracks, but the likes of 'Honestly?' and 'The Summer Ends' still sound as fresh as they did in the late '90s, and though few people in attendance realise the enormity of what a band liked AF coming to Leeds means, those that do offer the quiet respect the tracks deserve. Finishing with the anthemic 'Never Meant', it's clear that there's going to be more than one person going home to practice their guitar noodles.

 

Over on the Lock Up, Aussie punks The Smith Street Band play to a disappointingly small crowd; their set resting heavily on tracks from last year's Throw Me in the River. It's a shame the band draws such little numbers, especially given the vocal support in the past from the likes of Frank Turner. Unfortunately it's probably attributed to the fact both Panic At the Disco and All Time Low are gracing the Main Stage at the same time, but given the relevance of either band to a 20-something punk-at-heart, we're more than happy where we are.

 

Following The Smith Street Band, Philidelphia's The Menzingers draw a somewhat bigger crowd, allowing us to relive their support slot for The Offspring from just a few days previous. How they're not bigger I don't know, but with tracks like 'The Obituaries' and 'Burn After Writing' as well as the now-expected cover of The Bouncing Soul's 'Kate Is Great' thrown in to the mix, it's difficult to imagine them staying on the fringes of skate-punk for much longer. In contrast, folk three-piece Bear's Den play the Festival Republic tent and offer up a more subdued but no less heartfelt half an hour for those that find tonight's headliners Mumford and Sons a little too much to stomach.

 

Keeping things suitably pop-punk however, given the rest of the day's acts, we opt to spend the last two sets of the evening forgoing the middle class Mumfords niceties in favour of both Simple Plan and New Found Glory, both of whom pull what is arguably the biggest crowds The Lock Up has seen all weekend. With both bands considered pop-punk royalty. Unsurprisingly both bands litter their set with a handful of classics; the tracks which soundtracked the adolescence of everyone in attendance. It may seem a little trite to see tattooed twenty-somethings singing the lyrics to the likes of Simple Plan's 'I'd Do Anything' or New Found Glory's 'All Downhill From Here' with such adoration, but these are songs that meant everything to their fans at one point or another; the reason many of them became fans of pop-punk and alternative music to begin with. To see two such bands back to back, in a setting that was once synonymous with the halcyon days of pop-punk, at least as far as Britain is concerned, well, it doesn't really get much better.

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