Since her debut album Lungs (2009), Florence Welch has established herself as something of a one-woman hurricane. Oscillating between pop and alt-rock, Florence and the Machine are not a band to shy away from life’s most painful experiences, nor are they unfamiliar with the idea of clinging to hope in the face of destruction. Her gale-force voice pairs with lyrics about obsessive love, death, witchcraft and harnessing the power of nature, leaving emotional devastation in her wake.
It’s been 10 years since the band first played at the Hydro, Glasgow’s largest music venue, during a tour for their third album, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. Tonight, they return with the formidable Everybody Scream, an album that navigates the aftermath of Welch’s miscarriage caused by an ectopic pregnancy in 2023, along with a near-death experience caused by complications from that episode. She leans into mysticism more than ever before as a means of confronting and coping, as well as wrangling with the fame that both tempts and taunts her.
The stage is draped in large, thick curtains bathed in an orange glow and illustrated with healing medicinal herbs. Tonight’s audience (mostly young women) are guessing the names of each plant, intoning each one like a spell: raspberry, bramble, shepherd’s purse, comfrey.
Enter Welch and her Witch Choir as the drapes dramatically fall and swoop up into the ceiling. She begins with the title track from Everybody Scream, on which a bellowing organ clashes with ghostly harmonies before a cacophony of banshee wails and thunderous percussion sets the song’s frenzied pace. There are echoes of desperation within the dramatic force of Welch’s voice, her gothic lace gown flailing with each movement as she races across the stage. Choreographed by Ryan Heffington, the Witch Choir twitch, snap and fold into positions throughout like a scene from the folk horror film Suspiria.
While the focus tonight is on Welch’s new music, the recurring themes of grief, hope and folklore across her discography make it easy enough to surface her older material. Welch warmly extends across the sold-out 14,300 capacity venue during a full version of her anthem “Shake It Out”, as though conversing with friends in her living room. The shimmering “Cosmic Love” and the euphoric “Dog Days Are Over” feel like beacons through the dark, bolstered by rapturous drums and the harp cascading beneath Welch’s enchanting voice.
It felt pertinent to include “One of the Greats” in the encore as Welch continues to confront the perpetual tension of her status as a woman in music. The focus turns momentarily to lead guitarist Harry Fausing Smith as Welch skirts around the edges of the stage on ground level – voice contending with guitar, woman contending with man – as she sings in jest with her bandmate, “It must be nice to be a man and make boring music just because you can.” What unfolds here tonight is less a concert than a communal ceremony, Welch and the audience bound together in a shared act of catharsis.
