This past Tuesday, British group Florence + the Machine took to the stage at London’s iconic Royal Albert Hall in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust. Led by front-woman Florence Welch, the BRIT Award-winning and Grammy-nominated performed a selection of tracks during the 60 minute show, incorporating fan favourites from debut LP ‘Lungs’ as well as new music from 2011′s follow-up LP ‘Ceremonials’.

The concert was streamed live on YouTube in partnership with HP Live, attracting a worldwide audience on top of the thousands present in the Hall. Welch commenced with the band’s well-known cover of The Source and Candi Staton’s ‘You Got the Love’ and then moved into ‘Only If for a Night’, the first track from ‘Ceremonials’.

Despite Welch and her bandmates being known for soaring sounds and anthemic beats, every track was performed with a certain degree of restrained understatement, fitting for the venue and for the melancholic nature of the charity of which they were supporting. Welch, however, kept things light and was happy to engage with the audience.

It’s so amazing to be here tonight. Thank you so much … It’s just this space and the people and for this cause, it really means so much to me, so thank you. I’ve never been so nervous in my life! Even while I’m singing, it’s just looking up and seeing thing, and then it’s like, ‘Oh! I’ve got to remember the words and keep singing! Don’t get distracted by the beautiful arches!’.

As the show went on, Welch switched seamlessly between her back catalogue, from the ethereal ‘Between Two Lungs’ to piercingly vivid ‘Cosmic Love’. She joked repeatedly that she was ‘trying to practise being poised and … orchestral’, but from the audience’s perspective she was doing just fine.

With her tall, lean frame, and her simple, elegant dress, Welch fit right in with the classical aura, and might very well find herself fielding offers from the BBC Proms next year, considering how well she adapted to the evening’s proceedings while in the middle of an arena-filling world tour.

For her encore, Welch returned to the stage and belted out ‘Shake It Out’, the lead single from ‘Ceremonials’. This was an incredibly apt track on which to end to concert, as it speaks about new beginnings, letting go of the past, and looking to the future – a message suited well to the teenagers benefiting directly from the proceeds of this event. The organisation’s mission statement is:

We don’t believe that teenagers should have to stop being teenagers, just because they have cancer. So we fund and build specialist units for young people in NHS hospitals. Our units bring teenagers with cancer together with loads of new friends of their own age so they can support each other … Teenage Cancer Trust aims to ensure that every young person with cancer and their family receive the best possible care and professional support throughout their cancer journey.

For more information, visit their website. Meanwhile, ‘Florence + the Machine”s full concert can be viewed on HP Live’s YouTube channel.

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This year’s ceremony was a night of celebration for the likes of Adele, Bruno Mars, and Blur. The BRIT Awards 2012 took place on Tuesday, February 21, at London’s O2 Arena, with James Corden returning to host the music ceremony for the second year in a row.

Going into the evening, Blur and Emeli Sandé had the most reason to celebrate since they had already been confirmed as the recipients of the Outstanding Contribution to Music and the Critics’ Choice awards, respectively. Blur followed in the footsteps of such honorees as Freddie Mercury, Sting, and U2, while Sandé’s joined the ranks of Adele, Florence + the Machine, Jessie J, and Ellie Goulding, all of whom began their career with the Critics’ Choice acknowledgement.

Coldplay, Florence + the Machine, and Olly Murs were the night’s early performers, while the ceremony was interspersed with slightly more sombre moments as video tributes were paid to BRIT winners, Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston, who both passed away in recent months. Ed Sheeran took home the award for Best British Male Solo Artist, and special note was paid to his social media following (including 1.4 million Twitter followers) who were cited as being instrumental in his breakout industry success.

Winner of the Best British Group award was Coldpay, who had previously won the title in 2001 and 2003. In total, the band has taken home seven BRIT Awards during their 16-year career. In their acceptance speech, the band members thanked the “discerning, handsome, intelligent Radio 2 voters” who were responsible for deciding who would win the award.

Adele, meanwhile, was the recipient of the evening’s first award – Best British Female Solo Artist – before a surprise loss to One Direction for Best British Single, a category she had been expected to win with her smash-hit song ‘Someone Like You’. However, the 23-year-old artist took to the stage and wowed the crowd with a performance of ‘Rolling in the Deep’ which cemented her return to the music scene after spending the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012 away from the spotlight as she recovered from throat surgery.

Foo Fighters took home the award for Best International Group, but were not present at the ceremony, instead sending a pre-taped video message. Their absence was hardly felt, though, as Ed Sheeran was there to accept his win for Best British Breakthrough Act – beating the likes of Emeli Sandé and Jessie J – and Bruno Mars performed a Rat Pack-esque version of ‘Just the Way You Are’.

New York-based Lana Del Rey, who calls herself “the gangsta Nancy Sinatra”, won Best International Breakthrough Act and thanked the UK for embracing her music this year. Her solemn, teary-eyed acceptance was immediately forgotten as Rhianna provided the night’s most energetic performance, thanks to dozens of dancers who entertained with ‘We Found Love’, Rhianna’s chart-topping collaboration with Calvin Harris.

An interesting feature of the BRITs this year was an individual breakdown of each of the Best British Album nominees, where the likes of Adele and Florence Welch were able to explain the personal significance of their records in pre-taped segments.

Adele returned to the stage one final time to accept the night’s biggest award – Best British Album – but her speech was cut short by host James Corden in order to make time for Blur’s final performance.

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The debut album from Critics’ Choice winner Emeli Sande more than meets expectation

Since her appearance on Later With Jools Holland in September 2011, Emeli Sandé has been one to watch on the British music scene. After being named as the recipient of the Critics’ Choice Award at the 2012 BRIT Awards- a title won previously by such acts as Adele and Florence + the Machine- expectations were high for her first studio release “Our Version of Events,” which was released this past Monday.

Sandé’s album mixes everything from dance to hip-hop, with a single thread of continuity provided by her mesmerizing vocals. Opening with her hit debut single “Heaven,” and closing with “Read All About It (Pt. III)- a continuation of her chart-topping collaboration with Professor Green- “Our Version of Events” sees Sandé tackling well-worn themes of heartbreak, regret and new beginnings in ways which feel authentic, and refreshingly uncontrived.

Lending itself to this authenticity is the fact that Sandé either wrote or co-wrote every single track on the album, demonstrating that she was not intimidated by the contributions of established artists such as Alicia Keys, with whom Sandé worked on the album’s penultimate track, “Hope.”

Admittedly, Sandé’s debut will suffer in some circles, in light of its repeated exploration of lost love and mending hearts. Following what has come to be dubbed as the Year of Adele, Sandé’s repeated exploration of emotions stemming from lost love might cause one or two spectators to yawn.

However, after listening to the record in its entirety, there is no denying that she has produced something of significant merit. This is achieved by the way in which Sandé embeds many of her personal experiences into her lyrics. In “Maybe,” for example, she sings about the final days of a previous relationship:

When we first moved in together/Couldn’t keep hands off each other
Now we’re lying back to back/And silence in the black
We use to laugh until we cried/You would look at me and smile
Now we hardly say hello/And feelings never show

But it is in “Clown” that this album hits its peak. A stripped-back number, “Clown” lets Sandé’s voice shine as she lays bare the disrespect she has endured at the hands of an unnamed individual. Whether the average listener was exposed to Sandé through the feel-good- albeit formulaic- dance hit “Heaven,” or through her supporting role on Professor Green’s aforementioned track, “Clown” dispels any doubt over whether she can captivate her audience. On this track, she captivates- and then some.

It was a genius move by Sandé to close the album with her melodic, sweeping variation of “Read All About It.” Perhaps following in the footsteps of collaborator Alicia Keys, who released her own broken-down version of Jay-Z’s hit song Empire State of Mind, Sandé takes full possession and breathes new life into Green’s over-played track, leaving the listener reeling from her confident, no-holds-barred lyrical message.

With all the promise that this debut offering has to offer, it will be an exciting year for Sandé, beginning with her much-anticipated appearance at next Tuesday’s BRIT Awards, during which she will both perform and take to the stage to accept her Critics’ Choice Award. With an additional nomination in the category of British Breakthrough Artist, it would appear that “Our Version of Events” is a delicious and thoroughly enchanting taste of what is to come from this young performer.

Image Courtesy of    http://www.flickr.com/photos/beaconradio/

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