Florence and the machine at Brisbane Riverstage May 26th 2012

I still recall sitting in the Down Under Bar one night after work in 2009 and hearing Dog Days Are Over for the first time. I asked my mate if he knew who it was and that's when I discovered Florence and the Machine. I made sure I got to see her at Shepherd's Bush when I travelled to London later that year and was impressed, despite the unenergetic sold out English crowd (not that that stopped my Aussie mate and me from cutting a rug).

I then saw her again at the Metro Theatre in Sydney which was quite a different experience with the crowd singing along to every song and the jumping energy during Dog Days almost shaking the venue to it's foundations.

The new album 'Ceremonials' was a bit of a mixed bag for me, with some songs generating anticipation of hearing them live on stage, whilst I felt others were a bit.. well boring. However I did find that her first album 'Lungs' was a long term grower so the same might be true for Ceremonials; time will tell. So without too much in the way of expectations I went along to the Riverstage to catch Flo' and the band for the third time.

We were still walking up the path through the botanical gardens when we heard the crowd cheering as Florence took the stage. So when we entered we found that front half of the Riverstage had been fenced off and security had stopped any more people from entering, thus relegating us to standing at the top of the hill behind 9000 other people. After a tip from a mate we managed to get a better position on the far left side along the half-way fence.

Flo looked as glamourous and hip as ever in her usual dynamic array of outfits. But there was something lacking for me, her performance didn't have the same sincerity I'd experienced the previous two times I'd seen her. I got the impression she was running on autopilot during some of the songs. Granted that it wasn't all like that but that was the overwhelming feeling I was left with by the end. The raucous screaming from the front few (seemingly younger) hundred people would suggest they were loving it, but that teeny bopper over-the-top idolising just grated with me making things worse.

The last two times I'd seen Florence and the Machine were in relatively more intimate theatres. I think something special in that environment is lost when the band move to such a large open air, overcrowded space. It definitely was for me.

On the plus side the sound was generally great and Flo's voice was on song (I've never heard it not, actually).

I was glad I got to hear Spectrum, and Seven Devils, two of my favorite songs off the new album. Before playing Spectrum, Florence told the crowd that the best dancer in the next song would get a kiss from their keyboardist. A humouorus moment was had when one girl down the front was obviously very keen causing Florence to exclaim "We got a topless chick, this is brilliant!".

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