An artist who arrives on time, sings live (and beautifully) while dancing around the stage, engages her audience and manages to capture the heart-thumping difference between live music and a CD recording: A week after Justin Bieber, Florence Welch showed ‘em how it’s done.
Ok, so she wasn’t bang on time – but what’s 20 minutes when you’ve already had Brit band Keane on stage at the final Sandance of the season? They put in a good hour of radio hits (who knew they had so many?) on the sands of Atlantis, The Palm, where many of the 10,000-plus ticketholders had been partying since the afternoon. Tom Chaplin’s vocals are, as ever, astonishingly pure, as he powered through Everybody’s Changing, Somewhere Only We Know and Is It Any Wonder.
In between was British actor Idris Elba, whose DJ set kicked off with a remix of The Red Hot Chilli Peppers songs and also included Prince’s 1999. Although he’s best known today as an actor, as a drug lord in The Wire and with a Golden Globe-winning role in Luther, Elba’s first work in entertainment was as a DJ, a passion he’s pursued since he was a teenager. His set did a good job of keeping the wavering fans upbeat as they waited for Florence to hit the stage, and yes, I’d book him for a wedding.
But the headliner of the night was, quite simply, unlike anything we’ve ever seen on stage here, With her glowing red locks twisted into a Princess Leia pretzel on her head and her flowing, sheer dress blowing in the sea breeze (her seafoam outfit was by Dubai-born designer Marina Qureshi, who’s stocked at S*uce, should you want to imitate her style). From the moment she opened her mouth to sing, I was captivated – the eerie yet bombastic vocals she’s known for are the real deal. There’s no technical gimmickry happening here, and boy, can she belt them out.
Florence has a seriousness to her – after all, her songs, as she describes them herself, are about “love and death, time and pain, heaven and hell” – and her stage presence is intense, as she waves her arms to the beat of the song, pointing to different areas of the audience with the grace of a ballet dancer.
But then, swept up in her first song, she breaks into a smile, and it’s just so lovely to see a singer having as much fun as you are. She points at the crowd, smiles, twirls around like a five-year-old on popping candy.
She’s younger than you may think – 26 – and could certainly teach Bieber a thing or two about acknowledging your audience. For anyone who’s loved her since her first album, 2009’s Lungs, then one of the final songs of the night, Dog Days Are Over will have been a highlight.
Coupling a 60’s girl-band beat with her Kate Bush mournfulness, it’s impossible not to clap along and jump in the air, as she encourages you, on a count of three. “I want to see all of your sand-dancing,” she said with a grin before going into her dance-floor hit Spectrum, with its sing-a-long chorus of ‘Say my name’.
My only gripe with the show was with the audience, who, after a day in the sun, were enormously distracted during Florence’s set -- having loud conversations (some with their backs to the stage throughout the performance) and constantly walking and pushing through the crowd – I’ve never been to a concert where so many people were on the move.
Florence has indicated her Dubai show will be her last for a while as she focuses on recording, so those who saw her on Friday night are the lucky few. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we can say her name again.
