FLORENCE THE ROBOT IS A MACHINE. IOWA CITY. CHICAGO. SUDDEN ROAD TRIPS.
HI GUYS so my London entries tapered off due to me being Exceedingly Fucking Sick for a weekend and then I just didn't feel like writing anymore. At some point, they will continue. I've got one in Notepad that I've been hunting and pecking at for a while. It's probably a good thing I was sick so much during that trip so I can just skip entire days where I hung around the flat being ill!
ANYWAY, so even though I bought the ticket TWO MONTHS ago, I still wasn't sure until the night of the 10th (Saturday) if I'd be going to see Florence + the Machine in Chicago on the night of the 12th (Monday). I came up with the brilliant thought to call up Janelle and ask if I could crash with them on Sunday night, thus serving two purposes: to split up the intolerably long drive and to convince my parents I wasn't just up and going to Chicago 10 days after having been stuck there overnight (although I don't count airports as being part of the cities they're in) for yet another concert. INSTEAD I told them I was going to Iowa City for a few days, WHICH WAS PARTIALLY TRUE.
I got to Janelle and Alyssa's apartment in exactly 4 hours, 15 minutes and this would be the best time I made on all the driving I did. They were very welcoming, I got to hug Cattyfeets LOVE THAT CAT and I changed into glammier clothes so we could see a drag show at the local gay bar. It was amusing! I got very hot and went outside into the alley to cool down for a while, but I heard the music loud and clear through the open windows, which included some Justin Timberlake and Lady GaGa. LOLZ FAGS. I think my favorite part was when these four drag kings pantomimed and danced to NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye." Drag kings are SO CUTE. It was a competition and the cattiest queen with the most amazing figure (she must have done hardcore dancing and calisthenics in order to kick over her head and get the taut calves she had, as well as her totally flat midriff. I mean DAMN, girl, way to work that shit!) announced the winners, which included dousing one queen with a cup of water for 'worst pick-up line.' Janelle and I danced for a bit while Alyssa and her friend Clark, a fabulous homo, got drinks, and we also watched a bunch of fags strip to their underwear and flail on the dancefloor. Very entertaining.
I got an impromptu car tour of Iowa City and the always-flooding Iowa River after we'd taken Clark home and I got to see the campus of the University of Iowa, which is kind of just a good piece of downtown. It's not all clustered together and isolated from the rest of the city like UNO--it just incorporates normal streets and businesses into its mass. I thought it was pretty cool. Clark expressed jealousy that I was seeing Florence and I really can't blame him because... well, Florence. I was entertained that I'd gotten Alyssa into Flo and she'd in turn gotten Clark into her. I START TRENDS, Y'ALL.
Alyssa and Janelle took me to HyVee to allow me to sate my craving for ice cream and I got this awesome Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie ice cream that reminded me of English desserts! It's the first thing to do so since I've come back from Old Blighty. I MISS YOU, SWISS ROLL. :( We retired fairly soon after getting home, since the drag show didn't even end until 2 AM.
I got up around 11 (thank you to Janelle for waking my ass up) on Monday morning and got on the road to Chicago around noon. It was a pretty boring drive punctuated by Third Eye Blind and Florence very loud on my stereo and lots of singing. I of course ran into stop-and-go construction traffic at the fringes of Chicago around 4:30 and when I got distracted and looked at my phone, I bumped into this old Jewish guy's bumper and had to give him my insurance info and crap. I AM SO STUPID LATELY. I still haven't heard from him and he said if the damage wasn't major, he wouldn't file a report. So let's hope he didn't!
I got to my hotel (same one where Holly and I stayed last June, actually; they should start giving me discounts) and hit the internet for a bit while I changed into FANCY GARB so I could show off at Florence:
and then walked out of the hotel and down the street and down another street to the House of Blues. I really love walking around in downtown Chicago. Well, I love downtowns in general. And I love cities. But I really like Chicago. I took some pictures because it was nice out and early in the evening, but I'm too lazy to put those up right now.
House of Blues was very easy to spot, which is good. I stopped and said 'sup to the Chicago River because it was right there and I saw a steamboat sailing down it! So that was cool. Well, it might not have been a steamboat, but I'm tired of this tangent.
I got inside and went up some wooden steps and the whole place was kind of cavernous and big and ABSOLUTELY FULL OF DOUCHEBAGS. I was SO CONFUSED. I didn't get where all these Florence fans came from! The opening act, some bitches called Holy Hail, were nearing the end of their set when I walked in and I could NOT for the life of me permeat the pit area because it was so fucking crowded. That kind of sucked.
I got a $3 slice of pizza and a cherry Coke because I really hadn't eaten anything all day, and then I walked back and forth, fighting my way past douchebags at every turn, for about an hour. I ended up two steps above the pit on the level that all the bars were at, standing between a couple that kind of looked like an over-40 woman with a 25-year-old, and behind them some bitches that would not stop talking, and on the other side two pregnant women who wouldn't stop talking, either. I wedged my way to the front of them all at some point and just stood there being excited and bored at the same time. The speakers were playing jazzy old standards, which was cute.
AND THEN
THE BAND CAME ONSTAGE.
FLORENCE CAME ONSTAGE.
Photo by psykoangel on flickr. My ticket said no cameras allowed, so even though I had my camera phone with me, I didn't dare take it out because of what Alyssa had told me about HOB security. But I saw a ton of flashing screens during the show and Flickr has several Florence pictures tagged if you care to look at them! I was FAR too busy freaking the fuck out to have taken any good photos anyway!
My copper-topped siren wore a long black lace cardigan and black lace shawl over black satin high shorts and a tube top with black flats and a fedora, and the band ripped into "Howl" and thus began 80 minutes of me bounding up and down and chanting all the words and reaching my arms out towards Flo, who was stood probably about 15 feet from me--it was closer than I would've gotten in the pit, but a very awkward place to dance/move since EVERYONE AROUND ME WASN'T FEELING IT. There was a small pocket of folks at stage right in the pit who gave a shit, then there were people in the balconies who watched politely. The crowd was AWFUL, but Florence managed to get them moving (very late in the show, though).
SETLIST:
Photo by Andrew James.
OKAY, SO. "Howl" I actually had this idea that Florence was a bit inebriated from the way she moved and hid under her hat, but she started to loosen up pretty quickly. Her hat fell off during "Howl" and she went and put it on her bassist, which was cute, and soon removed her flats as well so she could roam freely and leap about and GO WILD. She turned into a whirling dervish of energy at several points, and she had her own drum to pound and she turned her lovely smile to us and greeted us at several points. "Hello, Chicago! We love you, too!" after some uproarious applause, and she chattered on at one point about how, "It's lovely to go to a place you've never been before and have everyone singing the words back at you!"
She also stopped a few times to exude over the beauty of the venue, which did have a lot of cool art and pretty sculptures and had a nice ATMOSPHERE aside from the people in it. Florence's wide-eyed wonder made me appreciate the architectural beauty more, and I wish I could've taken pictures of it!
The Machine was very good--I loved her drummer, he was spot-on, and she had A GUY PLAYING HARP which was GORGEOUS. From where I was, her bestie Isabella Summers (who co-wrote several songs on Lungs and plays keyboards in the Machine) was hidden by speakers, which was disappointing because I wanted to see her, too. I really loved Harp Guy whose name I can't recall, but damn, having a harp in your band is so fucking awesome!
God, Florence! HER VOICE IS SO CRISP AND PERFECT AND ANGELIC. During "I'm Not Calling You A Liar," she held out the word 'stop' for SO LONG, I thought she'd surely run out of air, but it just kept coming. And she bounded and jumped so much even while singing and it was AWESOME to watch. Every song was good! I'm not talking about all of them because there was never a dull moment!
"Hardest of Hearts" she described as "A song that's not on the record, but ... it's around on the Internet! And we really like it, so we're going to play it for you," and even though it's possibly the only Flo song I've not heard, I absolutely loved it and was entranced by her performance of it. I cannot say enough good things about that woman's voice. It takes me to other worlds, I swear. I downloaded "Hardest of Hearts" when I got home and it's awesome.
During "My Boy Builds Coffins," Florence looked right in my direction and I like to think she was pointing to *me* when she sang, "One of these days, he's gonna make one for you" at one point in the song, because I was the ONLY person in my area who was living it the fuck up and thoroughly enjoying myself! I will say that I heard a lot of singing along in the audience, and there was thunderous applause--I was just disappointed that no one else felt they should MOVE.
I am fairly certain a scream came out of me when "Drumming Song" started. It lasted so long and she tore across the stage wildly in the middle of it and then she did "Cosmic Love" and so I LOST MY ABSOLUTE SHIT for both of those songs and was POURING sweat when they were finished, glad that "Blinding" gave me a bit of a respite since it's not QUITE as epic (but still amazing, of course).
For "Blinding," Florence draped her shawl over her head like thus:
Photo by psykoangel.
and performed half the song from beneath the shawl. IT WAS SO PRETTY AND AWESOME.
During a break in "Dog Days Are Over," Florence asked us, "Will you do something for me, Chicago?" and we responded with shouts, and she said, "When I count like this... one, two, three! ... I want you all to ..." and she flew into the air, tucking her legs beneath her and looking twelve feet tall before she landed. "Jump! One, two, three!" and gradually, she got a good portion of us all to jump (EVEN THOUGH SOME OF US HAD BEEN DOING THIS THE WHOLE TIME, AHEM) and then she began to bounce in place, saying, "Now, I want you to do it over and over, like this! It's really fun, I do it all the time, trust me!" Then the song kicked back in, "Run fast for your mother and fast for your father..." and we finished "Dog Days Are Over" all jumping like mad persons and I nearly fell over forwards with exhaustion when it was done, BUT IT WAS GREAT.
During "Ghosts," which is apparently just a little instrumental they did after taking a brief respite (and I knew they'd have to come back since they hadn't done those last two songs!), Florence introduced her band and finished with, "And I'm Florence. It's very nice to meet you!" to more applause and I swear, the second before it began, I knew she was going to start "You've Got The Love," and I sang "Sometimes I feel like throwin' my hands up in the air..." just as she did, and a ton of hands in the pit flew into the air, which was cute! Good job, audience!
After that, Florence said, "This will be our last song... I would like you guys to do one more thing for me!" She lifted her free hand into the air and said, "When I raise my arm, I would like for you all to shout, 'RAISE IT UP!' Can you do this for me, Chicago?? Here we go... one, two, three... *lifts arm*" and we shouted RAISE IT UP, but she said, "Oh, I know you can do better than that!" and she ran across the stage to lift her arms at each segment of the audience until we were ALL shouting 'RAISE IT UP!' And so "Rabbit Heart" began, with Florence raising her arms heavenward and the audience filling in the chant for her AND OH MY GOD, IT WAS EPIC. We spent the last half of that song jumping as well, and I plum wore myself out just jumping and shouting the words to everything GOD IT WAS SO GOOD.
Photo by Jon Peck, who must've been standing in the pit a few paces ahead of me since this approximates my view pretty well. LOOK AT MY ANGEL, SINGING HER HEART OUT!
Florence is absolutely bewitching to watch. I adored her so much in person and I felt my breath catch so many times when her voice just poured from her. She had no backing vocals except for her band who would contribute incidental phrases--it almost sounded like she managed to replicate her studio vocals and layers just with herself. I don't know, it just sounded so magic and her voice is SO POWERFUL and awesome to listen to, and she's got great stage presence! I watched videos of her on YouTube and she seemed shy and would hit more bum notes, but I think she's really come into her own, because I was in no way disappointed with her performance in Chicago.
In conclusion, Florence + the Machine are seriously fucking awesome, and if you even just LIKE them and you get the chance to see them, YOU REALLY FUCKING SHOULD. Oh my sweet Jesus. It was wonderful. My only real lament is the stupid hipster douchebag crowd, but they can't be helped, and at least Florence's magic got them moving by the end!
I got a cup of water from the bar and gulped it down as I looked for the merch, which wasn't astounding, and then I went outside. The show was over just before 9:30, and because I was in an unfamiliar area on my own and I didn't know what HOB's policies were about meeting musicians, I set off at a brisk pace for my hotel again, belting out "You've Got The Love" and then "Rabbit Heart" as I brushed off some hobos. I stopped at Subway and got a footlong that I scarfed down quickly because I'm pretty sure I sweated out every calorie I'd had that day at the show. I wish I'd been able to meet her, but I don't know what I'd have said. I had Lungs with me and a silver Sharpie just in case, but I was a disgusting mess and I might've just tripped over my words. Oh, well.
The next day, I made my way out of Chicago and got VASTLY turned around because I missed a turn-off and ended up in South Chicago, driving parallel to Lake Michigan, which I hadn't expected to see on my trip. It was green and choppy and I wish I'd had the time to stop and sit beside it. I romanticize the hell out of Chicago, it's true, but it's my favorite city I've been to in the States. It's very lively and its grid layout is so easy to navigate, but it's broken up by all the awesome architecture and of course, the lake. I'll never understand why the Great Lakes aren't considered to be freshwater seas, because you can't SEE the opposing horizon--they're just too fucking huge for a moniker like "Lake."
I figured my way back up to the right highway and got on the tollway to Iowa around 1:30, which was unexpectedly late. This meant I pulled into Iowa City at 5:30 and I called Janelle on my way there, asking if it'd be all right for me to crash another night at their place, which she graciously permitted. We spent the evening just chillaxing with their friends Tiffany and Clark, who came over to learn how to crochet and I ended up going between my laptop, a Nintendo system running an amusing Donkey Kong game that I sucked at and gave up on (don't worry, Janelle, I was never bored, just tired!) and the couch where I demonstrated my crocheting prowess. Like proofreading, crocheting is one of those talents that comes inherently to me and is so infrequently useful that I leap at the chance to ... make use of it. I think I helped everyone out! I hope I did.
We crashed fairly early and Janelle tried to wake me at 9:30 the next morning first with Cattyfeets and "JESS, TIME TO WAKE UP," and I pled for 15 minutes longer of slumber. The next I heard, "Killing of a Flash Boy" was starting and I sat up to watch a bit of Suede's Introducing The Band, which is the second time in a month that I've been woken up with a Suede DVD. It's shockingly effective; friends who have me over, take note of this. I suspect Muse or the Manics would have similar effects on me.
I pulled on some clothes and half-assed makeup and around 10:15, Alyssa and Janelle and I went to downtown Iowa City for SHOPPING. They took me to a cool kind of junky-in-a-good way shop called the Silver Spider that had a mishmash of jewelry, accessories, toys and clothes. I got a bunch of cheap jewelry and goofy shit for like $20, which was awesome. We went outside into the sunshine from here and were in the pedestrian mall, where I was taken to the Soap Opera, a shop that purveys ... soap! Also perfumes and lotions and smelly-good shit. I bought a fair bit there, including these EPIC roll-on perfumes whose scents I can't really describe. I tried to smell one earlier, but as I'm dying of Plague, I can't. ;(
I wanted to treat them to lunch and we tossed around several restaurant ideas while walking around. Our choice ended up being the famous Hamburg Inn, where all the politicians go during the Iowa caucuses. I sat in a chair that was right next to a place where Barack Obama stood on his campaign! There were photographs of all kinds of politicians and some famous people lining the wooden walls and the food was '50s Americana. I had a strangely-spiced egg salad sandwich, good iced tea and a basket of delicious chicken with EPIC ranch dressing. God, I love a good restaurant ranch! I was SO TEMPTED to try a pie shake, but I didn't have room. I brought home a slice of banana cream pie that didn't make it and a piece of red velvet cake for my dad that DID make it, but I don't know if he ate it or not.
From there, we went to a yarn/fiber/sewing notions store where I found yarn for Holly and Mom as well as for me. It was super-cute and I found out there's an alpaca farm just outside of Iowa City which my sister of course wants to see now. After that, we hit up an antique store, where I found a ton of Star Trek toys for Sarah, and we stopped at a bookstore where I met a very pretty cat. Then I decided I should probably get the fuck on the road and so we went back to theirs, where I said farewell to them and to Catty before leaving.
Unfortunately, as soon as I got to the I-80 westbound ramp, my stomach sank, because it was backed up like CRAZY for NO reason I ever discerned. It took me a good 45 minutes to go about 5 miles, and so I didn't actually leave Iowa City proper until after 4 PM. I stopped in Des Moines to stretch my legs at Target (and bought a cute skirt, some food and the most recent Third Eye Blind album) and get gas, and then I ended up lost in Des Moines for a while. I finally got on I-35 south only to realize I'd just missed the junction where it met I-80 again and I had to turn around and so didn't leave Des Moines til after 7 PM. I FAILED UP EVERYTHING. I pulled into our driveway at 9:15 PM and promptly took a long shower after I got all my shit out of my car.
So that was my brief adventure! Iowa City was fun and cute, Chicago I wish I'd seen more of, driving by myself is INTENSELY dull and possibly dangerous given how many times I thought I'd fall asleep and run off the road and Florence + the Machine was a religious experience. And now I'm sick again with more infected eyes and congestion and coughing and sneezing, because my body rewards my horizon-broadening with DEBILITATING ILLNESS. Fuck.
J.
ANYWAY, so even though I bought the ticket TWO MONTHS ago, I still wasn't sure until the night of the 10th (Saturday) if I'd be going to see Florence + the Machine in Chicago on the night of the 12th (Monday). I came up with the brilliant thought to call up Janelle and ask if I could crash with them on Sunday night, thus serving two purposes: to split up the intolerably long drive and to convince my parents I wasn't just up and going to Chicago 10 days after having been stuck there overnight (although I don't count airports as being part of the cities they're in) for yet another concert. INSTEAD I told them I was going to Iowa City for a few days, WHICH WAS PARTIALLY TRUE.
I got to Janelle and Alyssa's apartment in exactly 4 hours, 15 minutes and this would be the best time I made on all the driving I did. They were very welcoming, I got to hug Cattyfeets LOVE THAT CAT and I changed into glammier clothes so we could see a drag show at the local gay bar. It was amusing! I got very hot and went outside into the alley to cool down for a while, but I heard the music loud and clear through the open windows, which included some Justin Timberlake and Lady GaGa. LOLZ FAGS. I think my favorite part was when these four drag kings pantomimed and danced to NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye." Drag kings are SO CUTE. It was a competition and the cattiest queen with the most amazing figure (she must have done hardcore dancing and calisthenics in order to kick over her head and get the taut calves she had, as well as her totally flat midriff. I mean DAMN, girl, way to work that shit!) announced the winners, which included dousing one queen with a cup of water for 'worst pick-up line.' Janelle and I danced for a bit while Alyssa and her friend Clark, a fabulous homo, got drinks, and we also watched a bunch of fags strip to their underwear and flail on the dancefloor. Very entertaining.
I got an impromptu car tour of Iowa City and the always-flooding Iowa River after we'd taken Clark home and I got to see the campus of the University of Iowa, which is kind of just a good piece of downtown. It's not all clustered together and isolated from the rest of the city like UNO--it just incorporates normal streets and businesses into its mass. I thought it was pretty cool. Clark expressed jealousy that I was seeing Florence and I really can't blame him because... well, Florence. I was entertained that I'd gotten Alyssa into Flo and she'd in turn gotten Clark into her. I START TRENDS, Y'ALL.
Alyssa and Janelle took me to HyVee to allow me to sate my craving for ice cream and I got this awesome Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie ice cream that reminded me of English desserts! It's the first thing to do so since I've come back from Old Blighty. I MISS YOU, SWISS ROLL. :( We retired fairly soon after getting home, since the drag show didn't even end until 2 AM.
I got up around 11 (thank you to Janelle for waking my ass up) on Monday morning and got on the road to Chicago around noon. It was a pretty boring drive punctuated by Third Eye Blind and Florence very loud on my stereo and lots of singing. I of course ran into stop-and-go construction traffic at the fringes of Chicago around 4:30 and when I got distracted and looked at my phone, I bumped into this old Jewish guy's bumper and had to give him my insurance info and crap. I AM SO STUPID LATELY. I still haven't heard from him and he said if the damage wasn't major, he wouldn't file a report. So let's hope he didn't!
I got to my hotel (same one where Holly and I stayed last June, actually; they should start giving me discounts) and hit the internet for a bit while I changed into FANCY GARB so I could show off at Florence:
and then walked out of the hotel and down the street and down another street to the House of Blues. I really love walking around in downtown Chicago. Well, I love downtowns in general. And I love cities. But I really like Chicago. I took some pictures because it was nice out and early in the evening, but I'm too lazy to put those up right now.
House of Blues was very easy to spot, which is good. I stopped and said 'sup to the Chicago River because it was right there and I saw a steamboat sailing down it! So that was cool. Well, it might not have been a steamboat, but I'm tired of this tangent.
I got inside and went up some wooden steps and the whole place was kind of cavernous and big and ABSOLUTELY FULL OF DOUCHEBAGS. I was SO CONFUSED. I didn't get where all these Florence fans came from! The opening act, some bitches called Holy Hail, were nearing the end of their set when I walked in and I could NOT for the life of me permeat the pit area because it was so fucking crowded. That kind of sucked.
I got a $3 slice of pizza and a cherry Coke because I really hadn't eaten anything all day, and then I walked back and forth, fighting my way past douchebags at every turn, for about an hour. I ended up two steps above the pit on the level that all the bars were at, standing between a couple that kind of looked like an over-40 woman with a 25-year-old, and behind them some bitches that would not stop talking, and on the other side two pregnant women who wouldn't stop talking, either. I wedged my way to the front of them all at some point and just stood there being excited and bored at the same time. The speakers were playing jazzy old standards, which was cute.
AND THEN
THE BAND CAME ONSTAGE.
FLORENCE CAME ONSTAGE.
Photo by psykoangel on flickr. My ticket said no cameras allowed, so even though I had my camera phone with me, I didn't dare take it out because of what Alyssa had told me about HOB security. But I saw a ton of flashing screens during the show and Flickr has several Florence pictures tagged if you care to look at them! I was FAR too busy freaking the fuck out to have taken any good photos anyway!
My copper-topped siren wore a long black lace cardigan and black lace shawl over black satin high shorts and a tube top with black flats and a fedora, and the band ripped into "Howl" and thus began 80 minutes of me bounding up and down and chanting all the words and reaching my arms out towards Flo, who was stood probably about 15 feet from me--it was closer than I would've gotten in the pit, but a very awkward place to dance/move since EVERYONE AROUND ME WASN'T FEELING IT. There was a small pocket of folks at stage right in the pit who gave a shit, then there were people in the balconies who watched politely. The crowd was AWFUL, but Florence managed to get them moving (very late in the show, though).
SETLIST:
Photo by Andrew James.
OKAY, SO. "Howl" I actually had this idea that Florence was a bit inebriated from the way she moved and hid under her hat, but she started to loosen up pretty quickly. Her hat fell off during "Howl" and she went and put it on her bassist, which was cute, and soon removed her flats as well so she could roam freely and leap about and GO WILD. She turned into a whirling dervish of energy at several points, and she had her own drum to pound and she turned her lovely smile to us and greeted us at several points. "Hello, Chicago! We love you, too!" after some uproarious applause, and she chattered on at one point about how, "It's lovely to go to a place you've never been before and have everyone singing the words back at you!"
She also stopped a few times to exude over the beauty of the venue, which did have a lot of cool art and pretty sculptures and had a nice ATMOSPHERE aside from the people in it. Florence's wide-eyed wonder made me appreciate the architectural beauty more, and I wish I could've taken pictures of it!
The Machine was very good--I loved her drummer, he was spot-on, and she had A GUY PLAYING HARP which was GORGEOUS. From where I was, her bestie Isabella Summers (who co-wrote several songs on Lungs and plays keyboards in the Machine) was hidden by speakers, which was disappointing because I wanted to see her, too. I really loved Harp Guy whose name I can't recall, but damn, having a harp in your band is so fucking awesome!
God, Florence! HER VOICE IS SO CRISP AND PERFECT AND ANGELIC. During "I'm Not Calling You A Liar," she held out the word 'stop' for SO LONG, I thought she'd surely run out of air, but it just kept coming. And she bounded and jumped so much even while singing and it was AWESOME to watch. Every song was good! I'm not talking about all of them because there was never a dull moment!
"Hardest of Hearts" she described as "A song that's not on the record, but ... it's around on the Internet! And we really like it, so we're going to play it for you," and even though it's possibly the only Flo song I've not heard, I absolutely loved it and was entranced by her performance of it. I cannot say enough good things about that woman's voice. It takes me to other worlds, I swear. I downloaded "Hardest of Hearts" when I got home and it's awesome.
During "My Boy Builds Coffins," Florence looked right in my direction and I like to think she was pointing to *me* when she sang, "One of these days, he's gonna make one for you" at one point in the song, because I was the ONLY person in my area who was living it the fuck up and thoroughly enjoying myself! I will say that I heard a lot of singing along in the audience, and there was thunderous applause--I was just disappointed that no one else felt they should MOVE.
I am fairly certain a scream came out of me when "Drumming Song" started. It lasted so long and she tore across the stage wildly in the middle of it and then she did "Cosmic Love" and so I LOST MY ABSOLUTE SHIT for both of those songs and was POURING sweat when they were finished, glad that "Blinding" gave me a bit of a respite since it's not QUITE as epic (but still amazing, of course).
For "Blinding," Florence draped her shawl over her head like thus:
Photo by psykoangel.
and performed half the song from beneath the shawl. IT WAS SO PRETTY AND AWESOME.
During a break in "Dog Days Are Over," Florence asked us, "Will you do something for me, Chicago?" and we responded with shouts, and she said, "When I count like this... one, two, three! ... I want you all to ..." and she flew into the air, tucking her legs beneath her and looking twelve feet tall before she landed. "Jump! One, two, three!" and gradually, she got a good portion of us all to jump (EVEN THOUGH SOME OF US HAD BEEN DOING THIS THE WHOLE TIME, AHEM) and then she began to bounce in place, saying, "Now, I want you to do it over and over, like this! It's really fun, I do it all the time, trust me!" Then the song kicked back in, "Run fast for your mother and fast for your father..." and we finished "Dog Days Are Over" all jumping like mad persons and I nearly fell over forwards with exhaustion when it was done, BUT IT WAS GREAT.
During "Ghosts," which is apparently just a little instrumental they did after taking a brief respite (and I knew they'd have to come back since they hadn't done those last two songs!), Florence introduced her band and finished with, "And I'm Florence. It's very nice to meet you!" to more applause and I swear, the second before it began, I knew she was going to start "You've Got The Love," and I sang "Sometimes I feel like throwin' my hands up in the air..." just as she did, and a ton of hands in the pit flew into the air, which was cute! Good job, audience!
After that, Florence said, "This will be our last song... I would like you guys to do one more thing for me!" She lifted her free hand into the air and said, "When I raise my arm, I would like for you all to shout, 'RAISE IT UP!' Can you do this for me, Chicago?? Here we go... one, two, three... *lifts arm*" and we shouted RAISE IT UP, but she said, "Oh, I know you can do better than that!" and she ran across the stage to lift her arms at each segment of the audience until we were ALL shouting 'RAISE IT UP!' And so "Rabbit Heart" began, with Florence raising her arms heavenward and the audience filling in the chant for her AND OH MY GOD, IT WAS EPIC. We spent the last half of that song jumping as well, and I plum wore myself out just jumping and shouting the words to everything GOD IT WAS SO GOOD.
Photo by Jon Peck, who must've been standing in the pit a few paces ahead of me since this approximates my view pretty well. LOOK AT MY ANGEL, SINGING HER HEART OUT!
Florence is absolutely bewitching to watch. I adored her so much in person and I felt my breath catch so many times when her voice just poured from her. She had no backing vocals except for her band who would contribute incidental phrases--it almost sounded like she managed to replicate her studio vocals and layers just with herself. I don't know, it just sounded so magic and her voice is SO POWERFUL and awesome to listen to, and she's got great stage presence! I watched videos of her on YouTube and she seemed shy and would hit more bum notes, but I think she's really come into her own, because I was in no way disappointed with her performance in Chicago.
In conclusion, Florence + the Machine are seriously fucking awesome, and if you even just LIKE them and you get the chance to see them, YOU REALLY FUCKING SHOULD. Oh my sweet Jesus. It was wonderful. My only real lament is the stupid hipster douchebag crowd, but they can't be helped, and at least Florence's magic got them moving by the end!
I got a cup of water from the bar and gulped it down as I looked for the merch, which wasn't astounding, and then I went outside. The show was over just before 9:30, and because I was in an unfamiliar area on my own and I didn't know what HOB's policies were about meeting musicians, I set off at a brisk pace for my hotel again, belting out "You've Got The Love" and then "Rabbit Heart" as I brushed off some hobos. I stopped at Subway and got a footlong that I scarfed down quickly because I'm pretty sure I sweated out every calorie I'd had that day at the show. I wish I'd been able to meet her, but I don't know what I'd have said. I had Lungs with me and a silver Sharpie just in case, but I was a disgusting mess and I might've just tripped over my words. Oh, well.
The next day, I made my way out of Chicago and got VASTLY turned around because I missed a turn-off and ended up in South Chicago, driving parallel to Lake Michigan, which I hadn't expected to see on my trip. It was green and choppy and I wish I'd had the time to stop and sit beside it. I romanticize the hell out of Chicago, it's true, but it's my favorite city I've been to in the States. It's very lively and its grid layout is so easy to navigate, but it's broken up by all the awesome architecture and of course, the lake. I'll never understand why the Great Lakes aren't considered to be freshwater seas, because you can't SEE the opposing horizon--they're just too fucking huge for a moniker like "Lake."
I figured my way back up to the right highway and got on the tollway to Iowa around 1:30, which was unexpectedly late. This meant I pulled into Iowa City at 5:30 and I called Janelle on my way there, asking if it'd be all right for me to crash another night at their place, which she graciously permitted. We spent the evening just chillaxing with their friends Tiffany and Clark, who came over to learn how to crochet and I ended up going between my laptop, a Nintendo system running an amusing Donkey Kong game that I sucked at and gave up on (don't worry, Janelle, I was never bored, just tired!) and the couch where I demonstrated my crocheting prowess. Like proofreading, crocheting is one of those talents that comes inherently to me and is so infrequently useful that I leap at the chance to ... make use of it. I think I helped everyone out! I hope I did.
We crashed fairly early and Janelle tried to wake me at 9:30 the next morning first with Cattyfeets and "JESS, TIME TO WAKE UP," and I pled for 15 minutes longer of slumber. The next I heard, "Killing of a Flash Boy" was starting and I sat up to watch a bit of Suede's Introducing The Band, which is the second time in a month that I've been woken up with a Suede DVD. It's shockingly effective; friends who have me over, take note of this. I suspect Muse or the Manics would have similar effects on me.
I pulled on some clothes and half-assed makeup and around 10:15, Alyssa and Janelle and I went to downtown Iowa City for SHOPPING. They took me to a cool kind of junky-in-a-good way shop called the Silver Spider that had a mishmash of jewelry, accessories, toys and clothes. I got a bunch of cheap jewelry and goofy shit for like $20, which was awesome. We went outside into the sunshine from here and were in the pedestrian mall, where I was taken to the Soap Opera, a shop that purveys ... soap! Also perfumes and lotions and smelly-good shit. I bought a fair bit there, including these EPIC roll-on perfumes whose scents I can't really describe. I tried to smell one earlier, but as I'm dying of Plague, I can't. ;(
I wanted to treat them to lunch and we tossed around several restaurant ideas while walking around. Our choice ended up being the famous Hamburg Inn, where all the politicians go during the Iowa caucuses. I sat in a chair that was right next to a place where Barack Obama stood on his campaign! There were photographs of all kinds of politicians and some famous people lining the wooden walls and the food was '50s Americana. I had a strangely-spiced egg salad sandwich, good iced tea and a basket of delicious chicken with EPIC ranch dressing. God, I love a good restaurant ranch! I was SO TEMPTED to try a pie shake, but I didn't have room. I brought home a slice of banana cream pie that didn't make it and a piece of red velvet cake for my dad that DID make it, but I don't know if he ate it or not.
From there, we went to a yarn/fiber/sewing notions store where I found yarn for Holly and Mom as well as for me. It was super-cute and I found out there's an alpaca farm just outside of Iowa City which my sister of course wants to see now. After that, we hit up an antique store, where I found a ton of Star Trek toys for Sarah, and we stopped at a bookstore where I met a very pretty cat. Then I decided I should probably get the fuck on the road and so we went back to theirs, where I said farewell to them and to Catty before leaving.
Unfortunately, as soon as I got to the I-80 westbound ramp, my stomach sank, because it was backed up like CRAZY for NO reason I ever discerned. It took me a good 45 minutes to go about 5 miles, and so I didn't actually leave Iowa City proper until after 4 PM. I stopped in Des Moines to stretch my legs at Target (and bought a cute skirt, some food and the most recent Third Eye Blind album) and get gas, and then I ended up lost in Des Moines for a while. I finally got on I-35 south only to realize I'd just missed the junction where it met I-80 again and I had to turn around and so didn't leave Des Moines til after 7 PM. I FAILED UP EVERYTHING. I pulled into our driveway at 9:15 PM and promptly took a long shower after I got all my shit out of my car.
So that was my brief adventure! Iowa City was fun and cute, Chicago I wish I'd seen more of, driving by myself is INTENSELY dull and possibly dangerous given how many times I thought I'd fall asleep and run off the road and Florence + the Machine was a religious experience. And now I'm sick again with more infected eyes and congestion and coughing and sneezing, because my body rewards my horizon-broadening with DEBILITATING ILLNESS. Fuck.
J.