At the London O2 on Tuesday night, 20,000 fans genuflecting before her, Florence Welch broke into 2008’s “Dog Days Are Over”, its harp trills cascading into that thumping chorus. Two-thirds in, though, she pulled back. The band kept playing beneath her – quieter now, letting the tension build – while she scanned the room, singling out phones and refusing to let that ethereal vibrato rip until every last one of them was put away. “Be present,” she implored; the footage would be “f***ing awful” anyway. When every screen had finally gone down – really, all of them – she released the pressure and the place erupted, her audience bouncing in unison, arms astretch, like wheat beaten by a gale.
Of course, we’re living through a collective reckoning with our phones, everyone talking about presence and mindfulness and experiencing art rather than documenting it. But head to any gig and that reflex still kicks in: the song starts, the phone goes up, the souvenir gets captured for an Instagram story you’ll post and never watch again. Far be it from me to claim I’m immune – I filmed her rendition of “Cosmic Love” earlier in the set – but if anyone has earned the authority to make 20,000 people actually commit to the here and now, it’s Florence Welch. Why would anyone be watching this singular artist on a screen the size of a playing card when there she was in full gaze, shadowed by four incredible dancers twirling and crawling through dry ice, commanding the stage like some magnificent priestess?
