Dry Cleaning / Nourished By Time

Godot Jan 11, 2023

Jan 10, 2023 - Montreal
Welcome to Canada! Hope the tour goes well.

This was the first night of their 2023 tour. The band were excellent ... a couple of what looked like first-night hiccups but nothing that won't get cleaned up over the next couple of shows.

However.

What the sound and lighting techs did was close to criminal.

Lighting was pretentious, primitive, and poor. Tom and Lewis were in complete darkness 75% of the time; back-lit as silhouettes 15% of the time, and half-light the remaining 10%. Their visual guitar playing was completely lost. Even worse was the same lighting for Florence - her singing is part of a performance that involves gestures, mannerisms, expressions, and body language. All these subtleties were completely lost in the shadows most of the time. At times it looked like a high school stage with as much random colour and flashing lights as possible, most of them badly positioned. Someone should message the lighting tech that sometimes 'Less is more'

Sound
Why was Florence's sound so bad? It was impossible to hear her semi-spoken lyrics and vocalizations. Their songs rely on the distinctiveness of the vocals but these were drowned out by the instruments (which were phenomenal), but the sound needs to balance these two elements and that was completely lost.

I loved seeing the band and wish them well, and if they (or whoever) can sort out the sound and light I don't doubt they will have an awesome tour.
Godot