Only If For A Night: Florence + the Machine

There’s something magical about live music. I’ve always known this; I think the first concert I went to would have been a Homebake festival when I was 12 and I’ve been chasing that same high ever since.

Though it must be said, truly great live music creates an unrepeatable atmosphere unique to that experience – and that energy, that sense of being alive and connected and a part of something being created, THAT is what leads me and many to follow the artists I love far and wide, over and over and over again.

When I first saw Florence + the Machine live in 2010, that was the only word I could find to describe the performance of front woman Florence Welch -  ENERGY – she just had this indescribable, yet deeply resonant energy that seemed to take me over entirely. I’d been a fan since first hearing her back in 2008, but as is often the case with most of my favourite artists, seeing her live took it to another level and I made a mental note then and there that whenever she returned, I’d be there to see her. Last Tuesday night, that time came. I somehow managed to get tickets to the Mastercard Priceless Music gig at the tiny Seymour Centre… The show Sold Out almost instantly, how I managed to get tickets I still don’t know, but I’m ever so grateful I did as it was one of the nights of my life, and personally the best concert I’ve ever seen.

From the opening notes of Only If For A Night, I had tingles head to toe. The soft dream like loop as the band walked on perfectly set the stage for Florence to appear in a stunning gold vintage gown. By the time she kicked into the first chorus, the dreamy air was electrified and pulsed with energy. An energy which completely took over every part of my being when she began What The Water Gave Me. From the first time I ever heard it I felt a deep, soul-level connection to this song, and hearing it live for the first time only affirmed that powerful resonance. I was still mesmerized as she moved into Heartlines – a seamless connection both personally, and the running water theme. As she moves across the stage, it really is like watching a mermaid out of water at times. There’s a grace, and flow, and spontaneity - yet it’s perfectly in rhythm with the music

The the intensity in the room increased tenfold from the very second she started Seven Devils,. I looked at Dae next to me in disbelief – we were both hoping like crazy to hear it, but didn’t really expect we’d witness the live debut of this hypnotic track at just the 2^nd show since Ceremonials release! But we did, and it was magical, spine tingling, and beyond anything I’d imagined. There’s a feeling that comes from the combination of vocals & instrumentation that seems to connect you with the other side of the ether. It’s both haunting and deeply calming at once. Almost like a sonic ceremony, making peace with darkness – inner & outer. And so she flowed with ease into Cosmic Love. In which the solo vocals made every hair on my body stand on end all over again. Note perfect, her voice alone filled the entire room.

If everything that had come before had filled the room - Lover To Lover expanded it. And what made it even more impressive is that it was entirely acoustic. It’s probably the most soulful and dare I say most joyous, song I’ve seen Florence perform. The rhythm in her vocals, and movement with them evidenced that this came from the depths of her being and shook us ALL out! And following that, few songs could have been a better choice than Between Two Lungs, a literal, and metaphorical breather, it was lighter, & softer, & simply beautiful.

With that intake of fresh air, the whole crowd jumped to its feet for the first time with the familiar opening of Dog Days. Whilst it would be easy to think that some fans may tire of Florence’s most played & popular song, to see, hear – to be a part of – Dog Days live, proves what a smash of a song it really is. There’s just this positive energy, and a real freedom that comes with clapping & singing along with a crowd of complete strangers; friends in melody, rhythm, and spirit.  And in the case of the next song, Shake It Out – friends in mask. Whilst the audience was still on their feet, buzzing from declaring the Dog Days to be over, Flo in her softly spoken, polite British accent requested we all put on the masks that had been awaiting us when we arrived at our seats. Then Florence herself donned a gold sequined mask and launched into the Ceremonials lead single. Whilst it may not be as catchy as the Lungs smash that came before it, it certainly carries something of the same celebratory, breaking-off-the-shackles, feeling, and it was also represented in a visual sense, with Flo removing her mask and dancing about joyously by the end of the song.  

The tinkling intro of Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) had the crowd on their feet once more, and for me, it was one of the highlights of the night. Always good live, the 2011 arrangement of Rabbit Heart is a little softer in places and I think in many ways it’s only better for it. The song all but comes to a standstill with Flo’s soaring vocal ‘offering’, and it when it kicks back in with the melody on keys, it brings a smile to my face every time –  truly one of the most satisfying musical moments I’ve ever experienced. Staying on a high, she followed Rabbit Heart with Spectrum - probably the song I’d been most hoping to hear live. If Dog Days & Shake It Out were celebratory, Spectrum was purely euphoric. Oddly, however, the crowd as a whole didn’t seem to feel it the way I did, and were relatively subdued – certainly more so than I’d anticipated, I’d expected Spectrum to go OFF! But it didn’t in any way stop me from feeling this rainbow soul-soaring song head to toe. Nor did it stop the crowd standing to give rapturous applause as this closed the main set – and so appreciative of everything we’d all just witnessed.

The applause continued right through the encore break, and only got louder as Isabella and the rest of the band returned to the stage, and finally, Florence. Bathed in soft blue light, the applause fell silent the moment she started Never Let Me Go. It was truly one of the most beautiful and emotional moments of the entire show. I glanced across at Isa at the beginning, and she appeared as spellbound as the whole audience. By this stage the final song wasn’t hard to guess, and just as Only If For A Night was a perfect opener, No Light, No Light proved to be a perfect closer. It carried as much intensity as Seven Devils, was as hypnotic as What The Water Gave Me, and as emotionally charged as the song that had preceded it. The note held in the middle of the song could have shattered a glass ceiling – just as she does in the video clip – and the last line, “Tell me what you want me to say”, delivered with piercing intensity cut right through air in the room, signifying it was all over, leaving us all sitting there stunned at what we had just experienced.

As always, when Florence spoke throughout the show, she was so incredibly gracious – as appreciative to be there as we were. There was a moment in the middle of the set when someone in the front row caught her attention and she came forward as he walked on stage to give her a hug. Yes, walked on stage – that’s how intimate this venue was; the front row practically WAS on stage.

On an absolute high, we left the theatre in a daze - and I think I remained in that euphoric-reflective state for most of the last week. But at some point, either during the show or reflecting upon it, I had something of an epiphany. It perhaps had been building gradually, having been immersed in Ceremonials for the last few weeks and watching or reading interviews. It had all given rise to thoughts about my own creative path. Seeing artists live is like watching their highest expression of creativity. When you see Florence take the stage, it’s evident it all comes straight from the soul, and she becomes this ethereal creature – or perhaps just a freer version of her true self. And when you see someone expressing their creativity – fully – and the happiness that comes with that both personally and collectively, it raises the question, ‘what is it that makes my own soul sing?’ Now don’t worry, I have no lofty ambitions of being the next flame-haired singer, or petite producer/keyboard player. No, I know what makes my soul sing – I’ve always known. But sometimes it’s easier to appease the passions of the mind, than it is to follow those of the heart and soul. Particularly in a creative sense – it’s easy to create solutions and to fix problems; this is what the world needs, and with it comes a degree of certainty. But my soul doesn’t just want to fix things that are broken; its need is to create from start to finish, and in the language of line, colour, and beauty. This isn’t a path of certainty; I don’t know exactly where it goes – I only know that wherever it takes me is exactly where I need to be.

"This is a gift"

“Our world always needs reminders of those things which are good, true and beautiful. The artists are always the ones that remind us.”

- Dave Kiersznowski -

P.S Proper photo post to follow soon.
P.P.S I may come back and elaborate on said creative path at a later date, but for now I need to spend time being creative - drawing, painting, tying silver chains into knotted masses - all the things I put on hold for everything else.

Quotation: You Are Not Who You Were Yesterday

“Creativity burns like a fire through the stuckness and dis-ease held in our bodies and turns what doesn’t serve us into ash. It dissolves the layers of conditioning that were put upon us and brings us closer to knowing who we truly are, our absolute nature and what we are capable of.”

- Lynn Zavaro -

"But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career."

- Madeline L’Engle –

"You are not who you were yesterday; whoever you were before this moment is literally a construct of your imagination. At this moment you have the power to choose whatever quality of personhood you desire. And because all minds are joined, whatever decision you make will in time be the way others see you as well..."

- Marianne Williamson -

 

Quotation: Dream Outside The Box

"There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, "Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams." Then they put the box away and bring it out once in a while to look in it, and yep, they're still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, "How good or how bad am I?" That's where courage comes in." 

- Erma Louise Bombeck -

“I have a relationship with paint and from within that relationship I feel a sense of comfort and safety sharing my emotions on canvas. I am an emotional artist and I paint what I am feeling. Pain, sorrow, joy, happiness, anger, defeat, hope - for some reason when those feelings are woven within 'art' - there is a freedom in being so vulnerable. Vulnerability connects us. It affects us. It's a little bit terrifying and a little bit magical.” 

- Kal Barteski -

“Society gets set up in a way that there are the creative people and the noncreative people, but everybody has access to the creative force. You might express it in a way that’s very different from how people think you should do it, but I really encourage people to find that voice. To me, everybody is like a fragment of the Divine. That’s what I try to put out there, even though certain fragments of the Divine that I want to fucking shoot …”

- Tori Amos –

Weaving a creative life balance

No matter which side you look at it from, our society seems set up to make living a creative life and doing meaningful work mutually exclusive. The fact that so many people struggle to incorporate both into their lives in a balanced way would seem to support the idea that only the lucky few can have it both ways. But I don’t believe that’s true. I don’t think the problem is that the two are exclusive from one another; the problem – or a part of it - is that our definitions of both are exclusive.

“We all have talents and gifts. When we cultivate those gifts and share them with the world, we create a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives" ** 

Creativity goes beyond just paint on canvas and words on paper. It’s not just ‘artists’ who are creative, and this idea of their being creative and non-creative people really doesn’t work, because ALL people are creative – creativity begins with thought, the only difference is if and how you choose to use that creativity. And yet we still talk about artists and ‘creative types’ as though they’re a rare species. 

“The artist is not a different kind of person, but every person is a different kind of artist”
- Eric Gill

Meaningful work is similarly narrowed down to something done by an elite group of people – Doctors, Lawyers, and professionals. We seem to confuse meaningful with ‘important’ – and what society considers important – forgetting that only we can define what is meaningful to us. It comes from the heart - not a rule book that says so.

“No-one can define what is meaningful for us. Culture doesn’t get to dictate if it’s working outside the home, raising children, lawyering, teaching or painting. Like our gifts and talents, meaning is unique to each one of us.” ** 

It doesn’t matter which side of the divide you fall, this is a problem, because despite what the straight suits may say - we need BOTH creativity and meaningful work in our lives to thrive both personally AND professionally.

For those whose creativity IS a part of what they define as meaningful work, it can seem like an impossible equation to balance. But I also think they’re more aware of how important those things are in their lives and I think it’s a part of why phrases like ‘the struggling artist’ exist. Because people who are fully engaged in their creativity become acutely aware of just what it brings to their lives, and for many the things it does bring are of far greater value than the dollars it doesn’t. So it’s not so much that they are choosing financial insecurity, it is more the case that they are choosing to ensure the personal paradigms that their creativity nurtures. They’re unwilling to endure the pain of suffocating their creative spirit.

“Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out it’s not merely benign or “too bad” if we don’t use the gifts we’ve been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical wellbeing. When we don’t use our talents to cultivate meaningful work, we struggle. We feel disconnected and weighed down by feelings of emptiness, frustration, resentment, shame, disappointment, fear and even grief.” ** 

One of the problems is that this can also come at a cost – and not just a dollar figure. A lot of creative work is unstable and under-appreciated; it may be personally meaningful, but it often falls outside the box of what our friends, family and/or society defines as ‘meaningful’.

“Using our gifts and talents to create meaningful work takes a tremendous amount of commitment, because in many cases meaningful work is not what pays the bills. Some folks have managed to align everything – they use their gifts and talents to do work that feeds their souls and their families; however, most people piece it together.” ** 

And it’s that piecing it together part that a lot of people find to be the biggest struggle. But I think that one of the main reasons is that we don’t bring our creativity to the process of cultivating meaningful work and a creative life. Instead, of looking for outside the box to create a workable balance, we try to fit our creativity into the boxes that society labels ‘meaningful’ – in some cases we settle for merely ‘acceptable’. And I think that sometimes in the process, we amputate the most meaningful parts to fit inside these narrow definitions. The fact of the matter is that not every artist will find Graphic Design rewarding, stimulating &/or meaningful; not every writer wants to be a journalist. So it’s little wonder that when we do squish our lives into these rigid boxes we often find ourselves uncomfortable. What we need to do is to use our creativity to expand the dimensions of the spaces we live our lives in. Not only does it provide greater comfort for our current selves, it also allows for growth and broadening of our perceptions.

Personally, I don't believe you can last long in a soul-destroying job without feeling the effects in other aspects of your life; but I DO believe that you can balance doing work that may not be your life passion, by weaving creativity through everything you do. Living a creative life is not about the number of hours a day you spend painting or writing or singing; on the most basic level, a 'creative life' is a way of thinking. And one that is valuable to art as it is business, and most importantly - to you individually. Creativity is the heart of innovation and growth; it's also how we solve all problems. Solutions come from creativity and knowledge, and almost all knowledge is the documented result(s) of previous creativity. So by operating from this mind set and bringing creativity to every task, we make the mundane more enjoyable; the challenging more easily resolved; and when we DO have that dedicated creative time to write or paint or play we're able to make the most of it, because we don't have to warm up or switch on the creative brain - it's already fully engaged.

So how do you keep the brain in that space all of the time? I think that the answer to that question is probably different for all of us. Practice is the very simple answer. In more specific terms, these are some of the things that I personally find helpful.

- Get clear on what inspires your creative thought and what drains it. Write down lists for both with your ideal life in mind, and identify the barriers that get in the way of living it. The things that inspire me I try to weave into my daily life - even in small doses. And the things that get in the way I try to eliminate shift or minimize.

- Be mindful of your environment and the effect it has on you. Personally, I cannot work amongst clutter and disorganisation - but I also find if things are too clinical it kills inspiration. It comes down to comfort & belonging - the mood, music, temperature and personal touches all play a part in cultivating that.

- Create an inspiration wall, pin board or blog. Whether its photos, artwork, quotes, fabric or trinkets - creating a visual reminder of all the things that inspire you can have an incredibly powerful effect. And I personally find that it has me expanding my list of what inspires me and adding or changing the visuals constantly, which also keeps it all fresh in my mind.

- Notice the little things. Nature truly is the world greatest artist. For me, there are few things that bring a smile to my face faster than colour and light - I have been known to almost walk into telegraph poles mesmerized by the beauty of pink camellias on bright green leaves, against a clear blue sky! A lot of people find photography really helps with this – you begin to look at the world through an imaginary viewfinder. I can certainly say that when I discovered the Hipstamatic iPhone app I did find myself wearing 'will this make a good lomo imitation photo?' goggles. The beauty of things like camera phone apps is that it makes it so easy to find a dash of creative inspiration in any moment.

- Don't always schedule creative time last on the list after the days work - make it a priority. One of the things I've discovered is a huge barrier to using my free time to be creative is exhaustion. By the time that point of the day(or night rather) arrives I'm exhausted, and when my brain is over-tired the creative flow stops. It was a realisation that actually took me by surprise, because I can't count the amount of times I've been so wrapped in a drawing or piece of jewelry I was making that 3AM would arrive without me even blinking. The key difference is that in those instances I started whatever I was doing before exhaustion took over. And this highlights one of the other reasons dedicated creative time is so valuable and essential: Engaging my mind creatively energizes me; the effect is not unlike meditation, leaving my mind clear and at peace.

- Step outside your comfort zone. When confronted with the unknown or unfamiliar we can’t rely on what we ‘know’; we don’t have a rehearsed or automatic response as we do for so many situations. What this does is forces us to think outside the square of what we do know, and explore new thoughts, ideas, feelings and solutions. Once the stream of new thought is flowing you never know where it may take you. Often when I come up with new creative ideas I’ll wonder why on earth I didn’t think of it before, and so often it’s because ideas pop up from the most unexpected places.

And stepping into the unknown is exactly what I’m about to do. I’m returning to work in a job that isn’t the sort of meaningful work that is most important to me, and it isn’t what I want to do forever - but it does create a solution to my present situation. It is meaningful to me in some sense, and it does offer me the chance to use my creativity in different ways that will help me get to where I’m going - and that makes me smile.

How do you weave creativity and meaningful work into your life? Have you been able to find a balance, or is it still a struggle? I’d love to hear how YOU stay inspired and on track.

** Quotes come from the book The Gifts Of Imperfection by Brene Brown.