Florence + The Machine at Deer Lake Park

In hindsight, few of us knew how lucky we were. Flash back to April 2010, and you might just remember having one of the greatest first dates of your life—if, that is, you managed to score highly coveted tickets to Florence + the Machine’s inaugural Vancouver performance, at the Commodore Ballroom. The artist known to her bank manager as Florence Welch sure put on a clinic, clocking in with a mini-spectacle that featured dudes playing giant harps and enough flowers to stock three weddings and a funeral. The 25-year-old—who was the U.K.’s newly minted It Girl back then—has come a long way in the past two years. Consider, for example, that she’s not playing to 900 or so curiosity seekers this Friday (July 20), but instead to 9,000 devotees at Burnaby’s gorgeous Deer Lake Park. Unfortunately, that means you’ll need an arm like Roger Clemens’s if you’re hoping to fire a bouquet of flowers on-stage, something that, honest to God, happened at the Commodore. We know, because we were lucky enough to see it.