On June 17, 2012, I published my first article on the Music and Myth. It was an in-depth review of an album called Lungs by a band my wife had introduced me to a few weeks earlier.
I’m not sure why I chose it for the inaugural article. In fact, I was planning on writing more about jazz and world music than indie rock or pop and, back then, I was quite an insufferable snob about the music I listened to. (Kids, eh?)
Still, I remember being enthralled by Florence + the Machine’s performance of “What the Water Gave Me” on Later… with Jools Holland, and especially by lead singer Florence Welch, whose unique energy and stage presence was certainly not something I was used to seeing on the often-conservative jazz scene. (Obviously, I don’t mean you, Esperanza.)
Afterwards, I listened to the band obsessively for weeks, as well as any interviews I could find that featured Florence Welch, whose eccentric, funny, and intensely vulnerable personality I found disarmingly authentic. And just like that, we seem to have solved the mystery of why I had chosen Lungs for my inaugural article. I was about to become a fan, and I didn’t even know it yet.
A few months later, shortly after I had quit my job in IT support in order to dedicate all of my time and energy to writing, Ioana and I took a trip to Paris, to watch Florence perform at the Zenith, as part of her Ceremonials tour. It had been a present for Ioana for our one-year wedding anniversary, and she was overjoyed that she would get to see her favorite singer live.
Here, I’ll take just a quick moment to mention that, yes, Florence + the Machine is technically still a band name, but the music is now strictly a vehicle for the creative vision of singer-songwriter Florence Welch. Henceforth, I’ll refer to her as I would a solo act. I’ll also be referring to her by her first name because this is how Ioana and I talk about her and, since this is my website, I don’t give a damn about journalistic conventions. (I think Florence would approve!)
That being said, Florence Welch became a very important artistic influence in my life. I formed a deep connection with her work, as the process of discovering and then following her career went alongside my own creative journey.
Over the last decade and a half, as I wrote and published my first book, then the others, as I developed the Music and Myth, getting to interview some of my favorite musicians, then expanded my writing career into an editing business for indie authors, Florence’s music remained a constant companion.
That was why getting to see her at this moment in my life was so special to me. I recently finished the scifi series I’d been working on for over a decade and am getting ready to embark on a completely new creative path, which will mark a new chapter of my life. It was also why I decided to return to the Music and Myth after a five-year break. Whether this is a one-off or a return to writing about music remains to be seen, but it sure feels great to revisit my first ever writing venture.
Interestingly, Florence’s new album, Everybody Scream, as well as the way its supporting tour is set up, seems to suggest the artist might be at a similar juncture.
By now, the album’s origin story is well-known to dedicated fans. After experiencing an ectopic pregnancy that nearly ended her life, the already deeply introspective songwriter was left pondering the sacrifices of art and fame and the toll they were taking on her existence—a topic she’d already wrestled with in her previous album, the excellent Dance Fever.
What started out as quasi-sarcastic philosophical musings on Dance Fever (“I need my golden crown of sorrow/My bloody sword to swing/My empty halls to echo with grand self-mythology/I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king”) developed into a seething resentment on Everybody Scream, as the trauma of the miscarriage left the artist feeling bereft and justifiably bitter. (“I do not find worthiness in virtue/ I no longer try to be good/ It didn’t keep me safe/ Like you told me that it would”)
The result is an album that feels acutely intimate, so much so that the songwriter admitted in interviews it would never have come into existence if she hadn’t released it then, as she would be reluctant to revisit these emotions in the future. Meanwhile, the supporting tour, with its resurrection theme and folk-horror imagery, felt at times like an exorcism, but at other times like a life-affirming ritual.
Now, on to the Vienna concert.
This time, the tickets were a birthday present for Ioana, who was excited to see Florence in a more intimate setting again. After Paris, we had seen her only one other time—in 2019, at the Electric Castle festival, on the tail end of her High as Hope tour. But the festival scene offers a different experience, and we both prefer venue concerts.
We chose Vienna, as it is relatively close to where we live. It’s a place we love and, most importantly, a city with a lot of Music and Myth history. We spent the weekend there, enjoying the gorgeous spring weather and getting amped for the concert, which was on a Monday evening.
From the beginning, we had high expectations for the show, as the previous concerts had already received rave reviews. Our expectations were exceeded.
Everything about the event was perfect, starting with the white-hot Viennese crowd whose incredible energy seemed to catch even Florence off guard. She became visibly emotional on several occasions while addressing the fans.
The crowd was equally excited for the opening act, Paris Paloma, who seemed almost as beloved as Florence herself. In fact, while waiting in line, Ioana and I had a lovely conversation about her with two young fans who had flown in from Sofia, Bulgaria, to see the show. One of them admitted she had become a huge fan of Paris Paloma while researching her music in preparation for the Florence gig.
I wasn’t familiar with the young musician from Ashburn, but her dark, atmospheric, and suitably aggressive indie folk, centering on themes relating to politics, exploitation, and female empowerment, was a perfect thematic fit for the show. I was reminded of a conversation I had with Ioana a few days prior about the importance of choosing the right opening act.
The charming singer-songwriter, an admitted fan of Florence + the Machine, didn’t let a broken guitar string get her sidetracked. Instead, she put on an incredibly fun, raw, and intense performance that had the Austrian audience singing along to her most well-known songs like “Labour,” “God Boy,” and the recently released “Good Girl.”
By the time the stage was set for Florence’s appearance, the crowd was ready to erupt.
The room went dark. Amid wraith-like screeches and wails, the Witch Choir took their places, their silhouettes barely noticeable in the darkness. In keeping with the “back from the dead” motif, Florence Welch emerged from beneath the catwalk that has been a staple of her tour, walking slowly up a flight of stairs like the living dead out of an open grave.
In what felt like an affirmation of rebirth, she raised her arms, summoning the light and the explosive drums of her title track.
A mythological universe unto herself, Florence Welch has a dedicated fanbase that basks in the singer’s idiosyncratic personality and the unique aesthetic of her art. It was not hard to imagine what would happen when the artist commanded everybody in the sold-out Stadthalle crowd to scream. The noise was deafening, so much so that I couldn’t hear Ioana screaming her heart out next to me.
During all of this, the exceptional use of the long screen above the catwalk, and the giant one above the stage, as well as the well-directed live video feed, enhanced the emotional effect of the song. When Florence sang, “Here I can take up the whole of the sky,” and the camera cut to a clear, close-up image of her face, it made for a superbly cathartic moment.
The set continued with “Witch Dance,” another song off the new album, before moving on to the artist’s established crowd-pleasers.
From the very beginning, I was glad to notice the vitality radiating from the singer, both in the strength of her voice and her stage presence. Contrasting with the darker vibe of the show, there was a liveliness to the performance, as Florence seemed genuinely happy to be on stage.
With a voice seemingly more clear and powerful than ever, she sang established anthems like “Shake It Out,” “Cosmic Love,” “Spectrum,” and “Howl,” as well as seven songs off the new record, delivering a generous twenty-one song set that spanned her entire career. (Only How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful wasn’t represented, as the songs were, no doubt, chosen for their thematic relevance.)
Revived (pun intended) for the Everybody Scream tour was “Seven Devils,” last performed live in October 2012 (one month before Ioana and I attended the Paris show), as well as “Never Let Me Go,” another song we hadn’t gotten to see live yet. When I pointed this out to Ioana, her reply was, “She sang many songs that I wanted to hear and wasn’t even dreaming I would get to.”
I’m sure a lot of fans felt the same way.
Some of my favorites were in there as well, like “Big God,” “King,” and “Daffodil,” the last of which gave the vocalist a perfect set-up for her first interaction with the crowd—a delightful head-banging moment while holding hands with some of her fans.
Songs off the new album included fan favorite “Buckle,” and my personal favorite, “The Old Religion.”
The main set concluded with a beautiful transition from “Heaven Is Here” into “Sympathy Magic.” The latter offered the crowd their most intimate moments with the artist, as she walked beside the long catwalk, caressing some of her fans and ending the song with a heartfelt embrace of one audience member who will surely remember this evening for the rest of her life.
For the encore, she started off with the raw, memorable “One of the Greats”, which I feel will become the song most associated with her work. Of course, “Dog Days Are Over” was not absent, and neither was the traditional moment where Florence asks the crowd to put away their phones and just be present.
The show concluded in a surprisingly optimistic fashion, with “Free” and the gorgeous “And Love,” a song the artist claimed she wrote in order to channel the often-prophetic powers of her songs into something positive.
“Let this one be the one that comes true,” she says in many of her promotional interviews.
That’s something I’m sure all of her fans wish for her as well.
For a while now, Florence Welch has expressed her desire to explore life beyond art and focus her energy on raising a family. Despite the painful, tragic event that led to creating Everybody Scream, the singer seems to be in a good place emotionally, intent on letting the light in and, perhaps, also on resting rather than running.
If “peace is coming,” as the song hopes to prophesy, then I can think of no better way for Florence to conclude this chapter of her creative life than with a stellar album and a series of absolutely flawless performances.
The Music and Myth 