Free-Spirited Indie Rock Icon Gives Strict Orders to Begin Concert ‘Ritual,’ and It Honestly Sounds Pretty Nice

Florence and the Machine are one of the biggest Millennial indie rock bands on the planet. So, when frontwoman Florence Welch gives their concert crowd an explicit demand, you better believe it’s for a good reason.

On August 30, the iconic band was playing a headlining set at Reading Festival in the United Kingdom. As the performance wound down, it was time for their biggest hit of all time: “Dog Days Are Over”.

Before going into the song, Welch asked the audience to participate in “a small ritual” with her. She then implored “every single person at this festival” to put their “phones the f**k away.” The singer explained that “filming this song will stop you from experiencing this song, and is that not why you came?” According to NME, the musical “ritual” was a success, and the band went on to finale with their 2022 single, “Free”.

“Dog Days Are Over” was Florence and the Machine’s second-ever single

Originally released in 2008, “Dog Days Are Over” was the second single that Florence and the Machine ever released. The song was featured on the band’s 2009 debut album, Lungs. Nearly 20 years later, the band is six albums deep and headlining some of the biggest music festivals on Earth.

In a 2025 Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe, Welch opened up about her life and career. She specifically discussed going into the studio to record the band’s 2025 album, Everybody Scream, with almost all the songs fully written.

“A few of them were written in the room. But yeah, mostly my process is having a lot of words,” she explained. “I feel quite strange if I come to the studio without words. Usually what compels me to go into a studio is I have a whole song written out, or I think I had ‘One of the Greats’ was a really long poem that I started writing on tour.”

Welch worked with Mark Bowen from Idles on Florence and the Machine’s new album

“I started sharing a notes app with Mark Bowen from Idles,” she continued. “I think things started getting added to there. It was ‘One of the Greats’, ‘Kraken’, I had ‘Buckle’ was knocking around.” However, for “Everybody Scream”, she only had the title.

“I do have a tendency to start with words. Sometimes that can actually be hard because then structuring,” she continued, “it’s so set in what it is that finding what it is musically can be sometimes tricky. Like, ‘Oh, okay, this song is fully formed, but what the f**k does the music sound like?’”

“I’m really fascinated to see people who sing gibberish and do the melody first. And I think it’s quite rare for me,” Welch went on to say. “I think I’ve only done that once or twice. It’s quite rare for me to do that. Usually, there is a story or a poem that has taken shape, and that’s what I’m coming into the studio with.”

Finally, Welch concluded, “You have to create the cinema. You have to, with the music, create the visual of what that song is saying.”