Belfast
Florence + The Machine
The insanely captivating Florence Welch - the festival headlining Boudicca, wielding anthems like a flaming sword - is at the peak of her powers, coming into a fully realised self-knowledge, poking sly fun at her own self-created persona, playing with ideas of identity, masculine and feminine, redemptive, celebratory, stepping fully into her place in the iconic pantheon.
An intoxicating mix of delicate fragility, dark humour and twisted Tim Burton style fairy-tales, her expansive art-pop vision can be both captivatingly tender while still frequently soaring to places where it can overwhelm the senses like an emotive tidal wave. From the live favourite 'You've Got the Love' to the chart-topping pounding epiphanic positivism of 'Spectrum' and 'Sweet Nothing', her raw Blues-tinged back catalogue is crammed with crowd pleasers and stripped-down, minimalist numbers.
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