Florence + The Machine announce headline Belfast Belsonic show

Florence + the Machine will return to Belfast to play their largest ever Northern Irish show at Belsonic, Ormeau Park on Wednesday June 28, 2023.

The flame-haired songstress, who stuns like a pre-Raphaelite beauty in her latest round of promotional shots, and her band, released their fifth studio album, Dance Fever, in May of this year to critical acclaim.

Florence Welch, 36, is the lead vocalist and primary songwriter of the indie rock group whose superb debut studio album, Lungs (2009), which proffered such seminal tracks as Dog Days, Howl, Kiss with a Fist and Cosmic Love, full of slowly-building-to-rapt-cresecendo riffs and lapidary poetic lyrics, introduced the singer as a whirling dervish of indie-pop, almost a newbie Patti Smith-style performer of soulful, sensitive-yet-fierce energy who pens lyrics with a clear literary sensibility, as in Welch, whose mother is a professor of literature, clearly knows her Bronte from her Bryon.

Tickets to see Florence are available here from September 29 at 9am

The band's second album, Ceremonials, was released in October 2011.

In the album, Florence's "obsession with drowning" is represented through the use of repeated water imagery.

It debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and number six on the US Billboard 200.

On January 12, 2012, Florence + the Machine were nominated for two Brit Awards, with the awards ceremony taking place on February 21, 2012 at the O2 Arena, London.

On 26 April 2012, the band released Breath of Life, a song which was recorded as the official theme song for the film Snow White and the Huntsman while in July of the same year, a remix of Spectrum by Scottish musician and DJ-with-attitude Calvin Harris was released as the fourth single from Ceremonials, becoming the band's first UK number-one hit.

She again collaborated with Harris on his track Sweet Nothing, which debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart and allowed Welch to notch-up her second number one (the latter song, an absolute humdinger by all accounts, unsurprisingly received a nomination for Best Dance Recording at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards).

In February 2015, Florence and the Machine announced their third album, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, which was released on June 1, 2015. The album reached number one in many markets including the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada. The record spawned two top 40 UK hits, and earned three Grammy nominations.

In September 2016, during an interview with Heat Radio, American singer Lady Gaga revealed that she and Florence had recorded a song together.

The track, titled "Hey Girl", was later featured on Gaga's fifth album Joanne.

Footage of their studio session was featured in Gaga's Netflix documentary Gaga: Five Foot Two.

.In 2018, multi-talented Welch, who frequenly escaped into a world of literature in her youth to escape her shyness and sensitivity, released a book titled Useless Magic, a collection of lyrics and poems written by her, along with illustrations.

Then in April 2021, Welch announced that she would contribute music and lyrics to a musical adaptation of jazz age supremo novelist F Scott Fitzgerald's possibly finest work, The Great Gatsby, with producer Thomas Bartlett co-writing the adaptation's music and Martyna Majok writing the book and Rebecca Frecknall directing.

Her fifth album Dance Fever is described by Flo as "a fairytale in 14 songs", although her entire life to date seems like a fairytale of utterly powerful and unwavering artistic creation.

Produced by Welch, Jack Antonoff (a former flame of Scarlett Johnanson and Girls’ creator Lena Dunham) and Dave Bayley, Dance Fever is the album that brings back the very best of Florence.

So expect soaring vocals, whip-smart lyrics and riffs that linger in the head long after listening.

Who else is playing at Belsonic 2023?

Scottish singer/songwriter Paolo Nutini was revealed in August as the first headline act for Belsonic 2023 at Ormeau Park.

The 35-year-old will play the huge outdoor venue on Saturday, June 17.

Nutini's debut album, These Streets (2006), peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart, which introducing the lovable Scotsman to an adoring public.

Its follow-up, Sunny Side Up (2009), debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart.

Both albums have been certified quintuple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry.

Five years later, Nutini released his third studio album, Caustic Love, in April 2014.

The album received positive reviews from music critics.

Caustic Love debuted at number one on the UK Album Charts and was certified platinum by the BPI in June 2014.

While Nutini has not formally addressed it, he was on a hiatus from 2017 to May 2022, when he announced his fourth album, Last Night in the Bittersweet.

Among other accolades, Nutini has received three BRIT Award nominations and an Ivor Novello Award nomination for songwriting.

In July 2014, he was referred to by the BBC as "arguably Scotland's biggest musician right now." And he arguably still is.

Nutini played Belfast’s Custom House Square to the delight of Ulster fans on August 25.

Support acts for both Paolo and Florence’s forthcoming gigs at Belsonic 2023 have yet to be announced, and we await the news with baited-breath.

The question remains, who else will be joining the Belsonic 2023 line-up?

Well, watch this space. Again we await such revelations with excitement.

Belsonic is the name of the outdoor music festival owned by Thomas Edwards which has taken place in August at Custom House Square in Belfast, Northern Ireland since 2008. It is organised by Shine Productions Ltd. The capacity of the event is 15,000, as of 2019. Notably, as of 2017, Belsonic is held in the city’s Ormeau Park.