iTunes Festival: London

The bluesy South London crooner Florence Mary Leontine Welch writes songs that occupy the same confessional territory of gossip-loving, genre-bending contemporaries like Amy Winehouse, Kate Nash, Adele, and Lily Allen, blending murder, mayhem, sweetness, and light into an intoxicating brew that earned the young artist considerable buzz in 2007. Managed by the Camden-based DJ duo the Queens of Noize, Florence and the Machine — usually featuring Welch accompanied by a single guitar player and occasional drummer — released their debut single, "Kiss with a Fist," on the Moshi Moshi label in June 2008, followed by the critically acclaimed full-length Lungs in summer 2009. ~ James Christopher Monger, Rovi Florence And The Machine performed a special intimate gig in front of just 50 people last night (July 13) as part of the iTunes Festival. The band – minus their drummer Chris Hayden who was watching in the crowd – played a tiny acoustic show in the Hub studio at the London Roundhouse. When singer Florence Welch arrived onstage in a long flowing blue dress, she looked surprised to find the audience sitting on the floor. “Wow I feel a bit like a primary school teacher,” she told the crowd before complaining about the height of her mic. “This is actually really tall too,” she added. “Everyone assumes I’m really tall, but I’m actually normal size.” As she was setting up, a fan’s mobile phone also rang – prompting the singer to jovially quip: “Can you turn off your phones please?” before she joked: “It’s funny that I’m at an iTunes gig because my iPhone has broken. So somebody sort it out.” The singer then kicked off their set with ‘I’m Not Calling You A Liar’ before performing ‘Drumming Song’ without any drums. “This is funny because it’s actually a drumming song and there aren’t any drums,” she pointed out. Despite recently debuting new tracks from their forthcoming second album, the band chose to stick with songs from their 2009 debut ‘Lungs’ until a fan shouted out a request for her cover of Cold War Kids’ ‘Hospital Beds’. “Are we doing requests?” she said, acknowledging the fan. “OK, this is for the speaky outy fan.” Welch also tried to pull her drummer out of the crowd for the performance, but he chose to stay at the back. “Thank you very much, it has been really nice doing a small gig,” Welch said, as she rounded her show off with ‘Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)’. “Big gigs tend to be so frightening that you normally forget them,” she added..