I really quite enjoyed The Drums’ debut self titled album – in particular the singles Let’s Go Surfing and Forever And Ever Amen. But watching the scenester over-accentuated performance of lead singer Jonathan Pierce soured things me a little; perhaps that says a bit more about my cynical frame of mind than it does about the New York band, touring with Florence & the Machine. So I am sorry to say that I was somewhat relieved by Pierce’s promise of “Florence is up next”.

And it took less time for the promise to come true than it took my companion to return to our spot with two beers in plastic cups; the Drumming Song setting the tone. It’s a double edged sword – when a performer such as Florence Welch’s songs are so infectious that the crowd knows every single word (or more to the point, they think they do) to their favorite songs. On one hand, that can lead to some pretty magical moments of community among an audience, but, I am saddened to say that, for the most part, last night, for us, at least – it led to young women who clearly enjoyed Sex in the City 2 drunkenly(?) belting out mis-understood lyrics out of tune and a large man waving his hands in the air and bumping into us. A lot.

But, luckily Florence was larger than life enough to hold our focus and distract us from the quasi-BBQ crowd we found ourselves amongst. And, that said it was difficult to not get caught up in the euphoria around the hits You Got The Love, Kiss With a FIst and closing song Dog Days Are Over.

Review by Andrew Tidball

Full photoset of Florence & the Machine by Amanda Cheng – click here