Sasquatch! Music Festival 2016, Day 4: Florence and the Machine

If there's ever been a more on-point request on the closing day of a music festival, they'll have to tell it directly to Florence and the Machine's eponymous singer, who couldn't have been more spot-on in describing the massive crowd that was in attendance for her Sasquatch! Music Festival-closing set. A weekend of dust, a diet of cheap beer and fried foods, barely any sleep, and wind – so much wind – will turn anyone into a walking, flower crown-wearing zombie. And yet, Florence Welch brought out the last drops of remaining energy out of a massive crowd, using the powers – divine or otherwise – of her bewitching voice and indefatigable stage presence. Even though she's only been headlining festivals and arenas for the last year or so, Flo is one of a handful of acts that sounds better in a large space than an intimate one, and she's been ready for this level for quite a few years – this already-mythical moment at Glastonbury 2010 is likely the exact moment when it was clear that leading 20,000 people in song is what Florence Welch was put on this Earth to do – so now that she's doing it night after night, it's a joy to see her in her element. Those who have attended Sasquatch in the past know that it can get pretty cold and breezy and night in the Gorge, but when Florence commanded the audience to remove an article of clothing and embrace their neighbor during an enrapturing "Dog Days Are Over", the video screens were filled with wide shots of a crowd holding their shirts, jackets, and hats over their heads while bouncing in unison. In a weekend that was mostly defined by bombast and spectacle – from M83's larger-than-life wall of light and sound to Sufjan Stevens' deistic freakout to Major Lazer's EDM-via-ADD figurative and literal firestorm – Florence and the Machine ended up as perhaps the most grandiose of them all, an act of pure love wrapped up as ninety heavenly minutes of music.