Florence + The Machine

O2, Dublin Tonight 8pm €39.05 0818-719300

My, my, but hasn’t Florence Welch come a long way from playing right down an Electric Picnic bill? The Ticket recalls talking to a giddy woman on the cusp of something she wasn’t quite sure about. Several years later and here she is: headlining the country’s most prestigious indoor venue with not an “intimate seating configuration” sign to be seen.

Certainly, the rise in profile and numbers has been fully deserved; Welch is a pop star of unusual but very intriguing proportions, flogging (if that’s really the word) stylised pop-art music complemented by fashion sensibilities that reference (she says) “Lady of Shalott meets Ophelia mixed with scary gothic bat lady”.

Whatever about the aspects that have turned her into something of a fashion icon, it’s the music that accounts for Welch’s primary appeal. What’s not to love about odd pop music with a broad commercial reach, performed by a woman whose lyrics reference love, sex, death, pain, heaven and hell. Bring it on in buckets, we say.

Can’t See That? Catch This

The Maccabees Sat, Dublin