No gig is too big or too small for Florence Welch. Last weekend, the Brit songbird was singing solo for a select audience at the secret wedding of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Tomorrow, she’ll be belting out baroque indie-pop hits from her 2009 album “Lungs” and last year’s “Ceremonials” in front of 15,000 fans at Nikon Theater at Jones Beach.
It’s all in a week’s work for the flame-haired Londoner — and it reflects a work ethic that has seen Welch rise from up-and-comer to all-conquering superstar in just three years.
But the singularly powerful singer’s drive to perform has met the occasional consequence. This summer, she was forced to cancel two major Florence and the Machine dates in Europe due to throat problems that surfaced during a show.
“It happened during a festival in Ireland,” she tells The Post. “I felt my throat pop, and I lost a couple of octaves straight away. I think it was just through tiredness and through overexerting myself, but it was so frightening. I love singing, but when it becomes a painful chore, it’s devastating.”
Advised by doctors to rest up for a couple of weeks, Welch recovered without much trouble, but it was enough of a scare to make her rethink her lifestyle. The famously free-spirited singer’s boozy benders are the stuff of legend, including one that started with knocking back dirty martinis with Kanye West and culminated in Florence chipping a tooth and almost burning down her room at the Bowery Hotel.
Such escapades aren’t so commonplace anymore.
“Even before my throat popped, I was already in the mode of not drinking so much on tour, because I realized how much better I sing when I’m sober,” she says. “In a way, it’s annoying because I can’t go gallivanting around the country, performing drunk anymore. It does mean that when I get back to London, as soon as I get off the plane I’m like, ‘Get me to the pub!’ ”
So while the hotels of New York should be safe, the watering holes of London should consider themselves on red alert.