In the grip of a hurricane

Florence and the Machine, 02 Academy Birmingham, 20 September 2009

This is a band who are having a moment, albeit a Marmite one. Love them or hate them they've certainly been getting talked about. Or at least Florence has, for all attention heads her way.

Opening with Kiss With A Fist - it could have immediately sent the crowd into fits of rapture but instead it lacked, well, punch. It seemed a waste to have thrown away the rock-a-billy roller coaster so early on but they still had plenty of crowd-pleasers in the their arsenal despite debut album (Lungs) only being released a couple of months ago.

The fear of a 'meh' set were abated as Florence ramped it up and unleashed her voice. Raw energy vocals are made more impressive by the control she exerts over the power. At high volume there are certain notes that when sustained silence the crowd as she makes our bones reverberate like tapped tuning forks.

More quirky set dressing is bought on as we're treated to a couple of acoustic numbers. I'm Not Calling You A Liar becomes at once fragile and menacing with minimal backing to her voice.

She is full of passion though and while exhibiting exquisite control over her voice the energy explodes through her limbs into frenetic dancing and banging on a drum in an almost possessed way. While some may put her kooky demeanor down to styling live she comes across in the greatest of English traditions - the eccentric. Tethered only to this dimension by the stage the performance seems like a wonderful struggle to free herself, fully become that force of nature.

That thrilling wildness is juxtaposed with the dark but often touchingly honest lyrics about love, death and the physicalness of being human. Cosmic Love tells the tale of giving yourself up to darkness when you fall for another heart and the intensity spills over time and again through Between Two Lungs.

The crowd cheers as the harp intro to Dog Days kicks in and clap along, jumping in unison, carried along on the whirlwind of sound. Florence seems over-whelmed at people shouting her name and singing along: "Every time someone shouts my name I look. You all know my name but I don't know yours." She blows kisses to the band and talks about how much love there is in the room.

Blinding makes a hypnotic but somehow not quite spot on closer and we're left unfulfilled but knowing we were getting more. As they take the stage for the encore people hold up their hands, making heart shapes from their fingers and Florence returns the gesture before unleashing her version of You Got the Love on us - like disco being hunted across a windswept moor. Live this song has everything it lacks on the album - emotion, honesty and a tightly packed crowd throwing their arms in the air.

Final song of the night Rabbit Heart (Raise it up) gives us chance to sing-a-long once more and then the beautiful chaos that is Florence collapses into a cacophony of sound and we are sent screeching into the night.

My thoughts on Lungs, Florence and the Machine's debut album.