I went to see Florence + the Machine live at the Sound Academy here in Toronto. A year or so ago, Michelle and another friend and I went to see Regina Spektor at that venue and swore we would never return. Not only is it on the Polson Pier, in the middle of an industrial wasteland, but it is badly designed and the sound is shit. We ended up behind a planter at the back of the room.

However, for some reason, that shitty Sound Academy seems to rope in some of my favourite performers, and there are some gigs to which I just cannot say no. For example, there was just no way I was going to miss seeing Hole perform. I missed them the first time around and I certainly wasn’t going to repeat that mistake. And the Hole concert ended up being so great, mosh pit black eyes and all, that for a moment I forgot my resolution and began to believe that the Sound Academy wasn’t so bad after all.

So when my friend in the promo department at work re-appropriated a couple of tickets to the Florence show, I was all over it. Michelle got a cheap ticket through the beat-the-box-office deal so she could join us. I booked the company vehicle, because transit to get to the Polson Pier is sketchy at best. Parking ended up costing almost as much as Michelle’s ticket. Strike one, Sound Academy.

Remembering our earlier experience with the Regina concert, we left early enough to ensure a spot in the crowd close enough to see the band. This also meant that we had to spend some time in line outside in the freezing rain before the doors opened, but no problem; we were still excited. We got in, checked our coats (another 3 bucks—strike two!), and made our way into the crowd, securing a decent spot.

During the hour between doors and the opening act, the crowds thickened, but we held our ground. It was an all-ages event, so the high-schoolers were cramming in and trying to find ways to slip through to the front. Some kids behind us made excuses about how they had been up front already and just went to the bathroom, and I was like, too bad, kiddos; if you want to hold your spots, you have to hold your water. Some other girl was like, “Seriously? You’re like, too tall.” And I was like, girly, it’s general admission. Get used to it. Am I cruel? Whatever. If I had let every shorty in front of me, I would have been at the back again, and I was not about to relive the Regina Spektor debacle, dammit!

So anyway, finally the first act started. They were terrible. Just a singer/guitarist and a drummer, and a song about the city being made of garbage. This garbage city was also gendered (female, of course) and the singer’s lover. What a tool. They droned on for awhile, and then the singer said that they had to go to another gig. Michelle remarked that their other gig was in his mom’s basement. Truth.

We awaited Florence with much anticipation. Roadies came and went; the crowd was abuzz. We had already been standing in our spots being crowded and pushed by teenagers for two hours. Then my promo friend noticed that there were two drum sets on the stage—one in back that said “Florence + the Machine” on it, and another set in front of it. With great disappointment we came to the realization that there would be a second opening act.

These kids seemed at first like they were going to be better than the first act, but upon longer reflection (and they played for nearly an hour, so there was a lot of time to spend reflecting), it became clear that they were actually worse. They were teenage shoegazers, the singer so young that he still looked like a pretty little girl. He clearly got by on his looks, because his voice was awful. You could hear from the progression of the backing music what the song was *supposed* to sound like, but what came out of his throat was something else entirely. They ripped all of their riffs from the Beatles, and the kid’s falsetto was just a hot mess of tone-deafness.

By the end of the second opening act, I wanted to leave. My legs hurt, my mood had been sullied, and I was ready to tear the intestines out of the teenyboppers jamming their purses and beers into my back. The roadies returned to the stage for an exaggeratedly long intermission between the acts, and Michelle turned to me and said, “Who does this Florence think she is—Madonna?” We were all feeling pretty peevish about the whole affair.

But then she appeared. Oh my. Oh my my my my my. Florence Welch is sooooooo prettttty. When she started to dance, suddenly all of our anger melted away. Even my gay promo boy was in lust with her. And she really did put on a great show.

Florence + the Machine really has a different sort of sound, somewhere between pop and goth and something just kind of weird. The lyrics to some songs make me feel kind of dirty for liking them, like “Girl with One Eye” (my favourite) or “Kiss with a Fist” (Michelle’s favourite). Others just have a really cool flow. It is clear that “The Machine” really is a collaboration of musicians working to enhance the sound and theatrics of her voice.

The teenagers were all about the Twilight connection, though. Apparently the Eclipse soundtrack includes a Florence tune, and she is pretty gothy with her black lace onesie and midnight-ballerina dance moves, so the live-free-or-Twi-hard crew just lurrrrve her. Plus, another song mentions being stuck “always in this twilight”—yeah, they totally screamed every time she sang that line.

Further into the show she started to play the songs for which she is better known, the dance-infused tunes that I can’t exactly call hits, but you might know them if you heard them.

All in all, I would say that the Florence + the Machine portion of the night got an easy 9/10 for performance and fun, but with the two crap openers and the absurd amount of time spent tuning instruments (strike three, Sound Academy!) in between acts, I would only give the entire night as a whole a 6. I might go see her play again, but never again at the Sound Academy. Consider me re-resolved.