Florence + The Machine
w/ CMAT
Bridgestone Arena; Nashville, TN
May 2, 2026
Review by Philip Obenschain
It’s hard to believe it’s been 17 years since English indie rock outfit Florence + The Machine triumphantly arrived onto the scene with their incredible debut album Lungs, bringing a thoughtful, feminine, witchy, bold fusion of indie rock, art pop, and timelessly baroque sensibilities to an otherwise overly hipster, fleetingly modern moment in turn of the decade musical history. The popular musical landscape has changed a lot in that time, but the band- helmed by powerhouse vocalist Florence Welch- have continued to build upon what they’ve done so well from the start, crafting five more amazing, critically-lauded albums (most recently last year’s Everybody Scream), refining their live show into something truly transcendent, and cultivating a passionate, diverse fanbase who connect with Welch’s earnest and vulnerable writing style.
No strangers to Music City, Florence and co. have performed in and around town more than half a dozen times over the last 15 years, most recently headlining Ascend Amphitheater in 2022, but their recent stop, on the latest leg of the Everybody Scream Tour, marked the group’s biggest Nashville headliner yet, at Bridgestone Arena (where they played once before, in support of Billie Eilish, in 2018), along with buzzy Irish country singer CMAT. The first Florence show we’ve covered (and first I’d been to) in 11 years (or: four whole albums ago), it was even more epic, magical, and surprisingly intimate than I expected, and reminded me why Florence remains one of the most beloved and enduring artists of my generation.
(Note: we weren’t permitted to photograph this show nor given artist photos; apologies for the all-phone content.)
I can’t remember the last an artist had such a passionate, broad amount of buzz as Ireland’s CMAT, who I’ve been hearing about for a few years now, but who I hadn’t given a solid listen to until last year’s breakout Euro-Country. I arrived just early enough to grab my seat before the singer and her band took the stage, situated in a small swath of Florence’s massive stage production. As the title of her latest album would suggest, CMAT’s sound is indebted to classic country music, though fused with a breezy indie pop sheen, and reflective of the singer’s queer identity. The performance was short but sweet, and CMAT’s confidence and charisma were big enough to fill an arena, even if this felt like a show best suited to a small, sweaty club (more than once she expressed deep gratitude to the Florence fans for being so kind, and disbelief for getting to plays shows of this size). Dancing around the stage, spreading positivity, and mirroring the singer’s energy, the band was a blast as well, serving both as backing players and occasional dancers, and songs like propulsive opener “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station” and empowering anthem “Take a Sexy Picture of Me” sounded stellar live.
During a bit of a lengthy changeover, I took note of the gigantic catwalk extended almost to the back of the venue, and the wraparound screens above it (projection most artists don’t bother to use in arena spaces), as well as the elated fans, many of whom donned flowy dresses and flower crowns like the singer. Before long though, the lights dimmed, the stage filled with fog, and four witchy, gothic looking dancers (who I now know are called The Witch Choir, and even have their own social media), emerged, and began dancing and contorting around stages as screams played, with Welch emerging from below the stage draped in a flowy purple gown, and kicking off the show almost as if casting a spell with new album opener and title track, “Everybody Scream,” roaming around the stage, twirling, and immediately commanding the crowd with chants of “screaming my name.” Though her excellent band (The Machine part of Florence + The Machine) stayed anchored to the main stage, Florence and The Witch Choir really took advantage of the catwalk, further roaming around and twirling and crawling around almost anomalistically throughout “Witch Dance,” using movement to convey emotion more expressively than perhaps any other artist I’ve ever seen at Bridgestone.
Transitioning from the new songs straight into fan-favorite 2011 hit “Shake It Out,” the room joined in with beautiful harmonies, and Welch sounded more spell-bending and impressive than ever (the vocal control alone, given how she stayed in near-constant motion, was unreal). It wasn’t until a few songs in, with spooky down-tempo tune “Seven Devils,” that Florence finally joined the band on the main stage, as her dancers crawled around to join and perform choreography (and maybe a few spells?) from the floor (I noticed that the gigantic screen behind her and the three above would occasionally show different images; sometimes accompanying visuals, sometimes a split between the singer and the dancers, and sometimes effects to accompany the theme of the song). That stationary mode wouldn’t last too long, as Welch again wandered across the foggy stage for the night’s one lone High As Hope tune, “Big God,” singing directly to the surrounding crowd with such intensity, before crawling into a sort of dogpile with The Witch Choir.
I realized that there were three whole albums of songs I’ve never seen the group play live, and “Daffodil,” from 2022’s Dance Fever, was one of the many career-spanning cuts that found its way onto the set, despite also playing nearly all of Everybody Scream. During that song, she left the catwalk, and climbed onto a tiny platform I’d been eyeing earlier just beyond it, allowing her to be mere inches from the fans on the barricade, providing so much more intimacy than a typical arena show. Staying there as she transitioned into “Which Witch,” Welch then walked down to the barricade divider (something she’d do a few more times throughout the night), reaching out to grab hands and have brief moments of up close connection with fans, before returning to the catwalk and getting the whole room jumping. Finally giving us one from Lungs, Florence rejoined her band (particularly accentuated by harpist Tom Monger for this one), for an etherial rendition of “Cosmic Love,” which flowed beautifully into the more commanding and singalong-primed “Spectrum,” yet another song where she bound all around the stage and catwalk. I’ve always found it interesting that Florence herself comes across quite shy and soft-spoken in interviews and in addressing the crowd, given how confident and commanding she is while singing, but in introducing “You Can Have It All” she explained she hadn’t been playing it at shows because it’s both hard to sing and about a difficult subject, taking a moment to advocate for access to reproductive care, and explaining that she’s only alive to perform it because of that access (Everybody Scream deals with the singer’s own tragedy of suffering a devastating miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy, which necessitated emergency surgery to save her life).
Situated back with the band, the next couple of newer songs provided something of an introspective, downtempo break in the set, beginning with the deeply vulnerable “Music By Men.” Introducing buzzy single “Buckle,” Florence admitted that the song almost didn’t make the album, and that she felt embarrassed still writing songs about people not texting her back, but was encouraged by collaborators to release it, and was surprised at the glowingly positive reception (joking that now she has to sing it forever, and that if she didn’t put out songs she didn’t want to, she basically wouldn’t release anything). Returning to the catwalk and joined again by The Witch Choir, “King” helped ramp the energy back up for the final stretch of the main set, especially with its anthemic build, alternating between old and new tunes for the remainder of the night. “The Old Religion” was witchy and commanding, giving way into Lungs favorite “Howl,” where the dancers emerged with their most drastic costume change of the night, now donning white instead of black, surrounding wealth with a sort of angelic, free-spirited, flowing sway. “Kraken” landed as one of the night’s heaviest songs, and the rhythmic “Heaven Is Here” left Florence and the dancers absolutely possessed in their movement. The main performance came to a close with Everybody Scream‘s most grandiose track, “Symphony Magic,” which was a very high note to end on, but, of course, not actually the end.
After returning to the tiny platform beyond the catwalk, grabbing fans’ hands and sharing embraces as she sang “Symphony Magic”‘s “come on, come on, come on” and “what else?,” Florence exited through the space between the barricade, with a sort of quiet, gentle intimacy; a fitting representation of the dynamic she has with her audience. As the arena momentarily went dark, the screens lit up to promote Doctors Without Borders, which $1 from every ticket sold had gone to support. The set was quite generous already, at 18 songs, but the encore features another four, with Florence entering, just as she left, through the crowd, up close and personal and touching every hand she could manage, as she sang “One of the Greats,” ending up, eventually, back on the main stage with her band, before waltzing once more around the catwalk. There was one song, of course, those of us who’ve been listening since the early days were most eagerly anticipating, and it was finally time for “Dog Days Are Over”- certainly the first Florence + The Machine song I ever heard, and the one that first made me fall in love with the band. Eliciting some of the night’s most enthusiastic singing and dancing, Welch took a moment before the last chorus to thank the crowd, and to make a request that everyone put their phones away (the singer has famously thorny relationship with technology at concerts), so that we could all freely dance and jump and be present in the moment (which, as far as I could tell, the vast majority of the room obliged). The fact that she could go the Yonder route of making everyone lock up their phones, but chooses not to because she knows it’s important to fans to capture the moment, even to her chagrin, is just anther testament to Florence’s consideration for her audience.
Coming off that high of “Dog Days,” the show ended with one last Dance Fever song, “Free,” a song I sort of forgot about, but really opened up in an empowering way live. And to end the show, fittingly, was Everybody Scream closer “And Love,” which was a beautiful, lovely coda for such a dazzling, multifaceted, special night, ending with Florence alone as she chanted “peace is coming” as a powerful ending message. I really can’t stress just how impressive, how other-worldly, how singularly profound a performer, a singer, a lyricist Florence Welch is, and how talented and perfectly-matched her band is, and every Florence + The Machine performance I’ve ever witnessed feels like such a special, communal, moving experience. I certainly hope not to let another decade past before the next one.
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Setlist:
Everybody Scream
Witch Dance
Shake It Out
Seven Devils
Big God
Daffodil
Which Witch
Cosmic Love
Spectrum
You Can Have It All
Music by Men
Buckle
King
The Old Religion
Howl
Kraken
Heaven Is Here
Sympathy Magic
One of the Greats
Dog Days Are Over
Free
And Love