{"id":290939,"date":"2026-02-10T18:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T18:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/290939\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T18:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T18:32:08","slug":"florence-the-machine-in-glasgow-review-the-star-has-never-been-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/290939\/","title":{"rendered":"Florence + the Machine in Glasgow review \u2014 the star has never been better"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florence Welch had yet to appear when the screaming started. Not from the overwhelmingly female, surprisingly young capacity crowd at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow, but from behind curtains suspended from the ceiling shielding a long walkway. A shifting spotlight gave glimpses of a woman maybe being mauled. It was half Psycho shower scene, a tad Tales of the Unexpected.<\/p>\n

Dramatic entrances are not new for Florence + the Machine but as the curtains were sucked up into the sky something did feel different. For starters, Welch was smiling. Arms aloft, the draped sleeves of her floaty, floor-length dress fluttering alongside her, she looked as happy to be there as the fans now chanting her name.<\/p>\n

Since the global success of their debut album, 2009\u2019s multimillion-seller Lungs, Florence + the Machine have never been less than spectacular live. Yet their flame-haired frontwoman can be a chilly proposition, often seemingly lost in her own witchy world.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Read more music reviews, interviews and guides on what to listen to next<\/a><\/p>\n

What\u2019s changed? Six albums in and at almost 40 \u2014 a milestone she has claimed she can\u2019t wait to reach \u2014 Welch is perhaps just more relaxed. Yet there\u2019s likely more to it. Last year\u2019s chart-topper Everybody Scream, the band\u2019s best album in a decade, suggested that the singer has finally got to grips with fame.<\/p>\n

There was humour here alongside horror, notably references to Welch\u2019s near death on stage in 2023, when she performed with an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy that ruptured, causing internal bleeding. Yet even the darkest songs were delivered with joy and, crucially, backed by a dialled-down, five-piece band \u2014 sometimes just drums and soft synths, occasionally only acoustic guitar and the band\u2019s trademark harp.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Florence and the Machine: Everybody Scream review \u2014 grief and couples\u2019 therapy<\/a><\/p>\n

The opener, Everybody Scream, incited a mass singalong during which Welch, barefoot and on tiptoes, skipped and twirled. Four dancers in Wuthering Heights-style cloaks, petticoats and clumpy boots spun in circles or crawled through a sea of dry ice to surround the star.<\/p>\n

On a momentous Shake It Out, the dancers became a choir. A strung-out Seven Devils was delivered like a spooky murder mystery narrated by Welch, while One of the Greats was dedicated \u201cto the ladies\u201d and brought the house down. Sure, Welch still wailed and lost some connection with us \u2014 on the guts-spilling Big God, she was part Patti Smith, part person possessed \u2014 but she bumped back down to earth every time she stopped to talk.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease don\u2019t film me drinking water,\u201d she begged. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t supposed to know that I\u2019m human.\u201d Before a beautiful acoustic version of Buckle, she admitted that the song was about a love interest not texting her back: \u201cSing it with me and share my shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the set and the start of the encore, Welch was in among the crowd, hugging and high-fiving. A distant performer? Not any more.
\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n

Florence + the Machine setlist at OVO Hydro, Glasgow, Feb 9<\/p>\n

1. Everybody Scream
2. Witch Dance
3. Shake It Out
4. Seven Devils
5. Big God
6. Daffodil
7. Which Witch
8. Cosmic Love
9. Spectrum
10. You Can Have It All
11. Music by Men
12. Buckle
13. King
14. The Old Religion
15. Howl
16. Heaven Is Here
17. Sympathy Magic
18. One of the Greats
19. Dog Days
20. Free
21. And Love<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florence Welch had yet to appear when the screaming started. Not from the overwhelmingly female, surprisingly young capacity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-290939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}