Long ago I made it a major point on my bucket list to see Florence + the Machine live. First chance was in Berlin, on December 1st 2012, but I waited too long with buying the tickets and they sold out in early July. Learning from experience, I purchased my tickets for both Woodkid back in May and Florence this past Saturday well in advance, and I was right to do so - where normally it would be possible to come up to festival gates of Coke Live and buy a ticket on the spot, this year everything sold out shortly before the event.
And what an event it was. Due to Wu-Tang Clan, another major star of the festival, being late by several hours, the crowd who came to CLMF just for F+TM started gathering in front of the Main Stage very early on rather than filter in through the dispersing audience of Wu-Tang the moment the hip-hop band finished playing an hour before Flo. As I arrived on site over two hours early, you couldn't squeeze a finger in within twenty meters from the barrier. To the day of my death I will be proud of the fact that when Florence walked up to her microphone and started singing I was deep into the Golden Circle, between me and the barriers only two outrageously tall men (whom I nicely asked to let me slip in between them, only to be bluntly refused this minimal courtesy) and some two or three meters away from the passage in the middle. I was lucky to be passed by a large group of determined people as I was trying meekly to worm my way closer from the outskirts of the throng while Tres.B were on stage, standing in for WTC; I grabbed on to them and let myself be pulled right into the heat of things, heedless of any and all risks that getting there in sandals involved. (Either way, my feet were better off in sandals than they were in Dr Marten's on Woodkid, though the pogo was comparable).
On the downside, the closer we got, the more glitter was tossed around, and by the time we were within the tightest-packed part of the audience half my chest was covered in it. When Florence herself pulled out a pack of the golden dust and started generously sprinkling whoever she could reach, it just wasn't worth the fuss to avoid being lathered with it - apparently Golden Circle isn't called golden for nothing and when I caught up with my friend after the concert, it was blatantly obvious I'd been there, as illustrated. :) Even today, four days later, there's glitter under my eyes that no amount of scrubbing my face raw could remove, and later I just didn't bother, keeping it as a memoir of sorts.
Florence was every bit the fairy and escapee from a Rosetti painting that I remembered her from live performances recorded and uploaded to YouTube and, to my utter bewilderment, proved that she is, indeed, capable of holding a tune for nearly twenty seconds without taking a breath. On our part, the audience didn't disappoint, either - half of the time I couldn't hear her over the horrible singing and general screaming we did. Though oxygen was scarce, notions like personal space and subtlety were left behind well out of the festival grounds, glitter entered my trachea and lungs in cancerous amounts and I very much felt like in a frenzied herd of cattle condensed like sardines in a tin, it was easily one of the best experiences of my life. Artists probably say that worldwide on every concert they give, but Florence spoke very warmly of performing for Polish audiences - that the reception is much more enthusiastic than anywhere else; that she will return gladly and loves singing for us. And I, for one thing, believe that; the cameras sweeping overhead never really capture the passion of the crowd on festivals, but what went down on Coke Live felt far more vibrant than what footage from other events, better suiting the burgeoning, all-consuming and pure energy of F+TM's songs.
I am now trying (and going to fail) to eloquently put to words my glee over one particular moment, when Isabella Summers, stationed almost right in front of me, had a while to pay some attention to us rather than her instruments, and, by some miracle, spotted me behind the two men over whose shoulders I was doing my best to look. My hands were high up, the red paisley bandana that had earlier slid from my head tied around my wrist, which probably caught her eye enough to see it when I playfully waved my fingers at her with a face-splitting grin, and she responded in kind. [insert my joyful squealing and a bit of flailing at the mere memory.] I don't know how much of it is my wishful thinking, but I choose to believe it was the way I just described rather than Isa greeting the crowd in general. :D
After the concert I met up with a friend and we ambled towards the official festival shop, where a stroke of luck allowed me to purchase the last of Florence's Raise It Up t-shirts available - and what a stroke it was, for just as it was laid out in front of me and I was pulling my card back from the terminal two girls asked about it. Afterwards we tried to get something to drink, but to no avail - the queue to the coke stand resembled a concert audience, refusing to move in any direction, locking us out. By then exhaustion was catching up with me and I started cataloguing my many aches: ribs and shoulders from holding my hands up all the time, calves from standing on tiptoe, thighs from jumping; jaw from singing yelling at the top of my lungs, neck from craning my head up; sides from being elbowed by the ever-shifting crowd. On the bus ride back to the city I collapsed on the seat, boneless, realizing with a sort of dazed detachment that I'd been standing, walking and bouncing on my feet for close to five hours straight with no rest and no need for one, and not even a scratch was visible on my nearly-bare feet despite them being regularly stomped on. Someone next to me was dozing off standing. The city was alive with concertgoers coming back to wherever they were spending the night or straight to the station to catch a train home, or to a party if they had enough energy to dance and drink some more. I suppose such antics wouldn't be beyond me, either; I stayed up for nearly an hour after I got back to the hotel where I was staying with my mom, blogging excitedly, and couldn't fall asleep when I finally went to bed, getting maybe two hours' worth of sleep until mom roused me for breakfast at nine am.
I am incredibly glad I was there, and hope I get to see Florence + the Machine at least once more - and perhaps get into a meet&greet with the band, or sneak backstage to express my love for their music and performance personally. I just got news that Woodkid will be visiting Poland again in December, too, so maybe these dreams pertaining to him will come true - provided I buy tickets on time, that is. :)
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