Watch Florence and the Machine Bring ‘King’ to ‘Corden’

Florence and the Machine wrap up the North American tour in support of their new album Dance Fever this week, but first Florence Welch and company stopped by the Late Late Show to perform “King.”

In addition to performing, Welch also sat down with host James Corden and fellow guest Nick Kroll to talk about engorging herself with horror movies during the Covid-19 lockdown. “Rom-coms, with all the touching… it felt like a lost world,” Welch said:

The gender-challenging “King” was the first single off the band’s new LP, arriving in February of this year before Welch even announced Dance Fever.

“As an artist, I never actually thought about my gender that much,” Welch said of “King” in a statement at the time. 

“I just got on with it. I was as good as the men and I just went out there and matched them every time. But now, thinking about being a woman in my 30s and the future, I suddenly feel this tearing of my identity and my desires. That to be a performer, but also to want a family might not be as simple for me as it is for my male counterparts. I had modelled myself almost exclusively on male performers, and for the first time I felt a wall come down between me and my idols as I have to make decisions they did not.”

Following a pair of warm-up shows, Florence and the Machine kicked off their headlining trek on Sept. 2 in Montreal. The tour concludes this week with a show in San Diego before a pair of gigs at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl on Oct. 14 and 15.