After Florence + The Machine was forced to cancel two shows at the Zurich Open Air and Rock en Seine festivals, singer Florence Welch has revealed that the cancellation was due to an emergency surgery, which she said saved her life.
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“I’m so sorry that I had to cancel the last couple of shows,” wrote Welch. In November 2022, the band had to postpone their UK tour after Welch broke her foot on stage. “My feet are fine,” she added. “I had to have emergency surgery for reasons I don’t really feel strong enough to go into yet but it saved my life.”
Welch said she will continue with the band’s final two shows of their tour in Lisbon Portugal on September 1 and Málaga, Spain on September 2, in support of their 2022 album Dance Fever.
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“Suffice to say I wish the songs were less accurate in their predictions,” said Welch. “But creativity is a way of coping, mythology is [a] way of making sense. And the dark fairytale of ‘Dance Fever,’ with all its strange prophecies, will provide me with much needed strength and catharsis right now.”
On August 10, 2023, Florence + The Machine released a career-spanning compilation, Under Heaven Over Hell. Curated by Welch, the album features 39 tracks from all five of the band’s albums, from their 2009 debut Lungs through 2011 follow-up Ceremonials and on through How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful in 2015, and High As Hope in 2018, along with Dance Fever and their new single “Mermaids.”
Under Heaven Over Hell was first considered as the title of the band’s debut album, which was ultimately called Lungs.
“Options for listening are running through a field, in a haunted house, drinking fake blood and crying glitter,” wrote Welch, offering some suggestions for listening to the compilation, and added, “Drunk in a clown suit. Calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden.”
Photo: Kieran Frost/Redferns
