Sydney’s Ernest Ellis has been catching a lot of the right breaks lately. Fresh from an appearance at the Come Together festival, a headlining tour and a reasonably positive review in Rolling Stone, the singer-songwriter has scored the opening slot on all four of Florence and The Machine’s Sydney shows. A pat on the back is more than deserved for such a relatively new artist, but the problem most will find is that you will find yourself wanting to like him a lot more than you feel you can.

Allow an elaboration: the man obviously has a slew of well-arranged tracks that are at the very least memorable, with tracks such as “Want For Anything” and single “Loveless”. With that said, there’s not enough substantially going on with Ellis – it seems like every track is coated in the same kind of reverb, with most choruses going past unnoticed and the down-tempo mood only working in the band’s favour for so long. As a performer, Ellis is also still noticeably struggling to be the engaging, enigmatic frontman he evidently desires to be, often looking lost throughout his forty-five minute performance. There’s far worse acts that could have secured such a big support slot, but Ernest Ellis didn’t feel like the right artist to kick off the evening with the energy levels needed.

A black veil covered the stage, lights flashed with literal brilliance and an empty bird cage lingered near the drum riser. For yesterday, tonight and tomorrow only, Florence Welch and her five-piece band have created her own private world in the Enmore Theatre – and what a world to be immersed in. The fiery femme fatale rose her drumstick-clenching fist to the sky before signalling the pounding intro to “Drumming Song”. We were away. The gates into Florence’s universe had been opened, and we had no intentions of leaving.

Tonight’s performance was a true spectacle – an audio-visual sensory delight acting as a complete validation of the amazing eighteen months or so of successes that Florence and The Machine has had. Beloved tracks from Lungs were aired (excuse the shameless pun opportunity) with equal amounts of adoration from the packed-in Enmore crowd. Whether it was the sinister shuffle of “My Boy Builds Coffins”, the envious revenge balladry of “Girl With One Eye” or even the eerie, delicate beauty found in “I’m Not Calling You A Liar”, there was never a shortage of highly-active response. Even when more obscure numbers were performed – Twilight: Eclipse soundtrack feature “Heavy In Your Arms” or unreleased new track “Strangeness & Charm” – the adoring crowd gave their undivided attention and howled their approval.

Then again, it wasn’t as if taking your eyes of Welch was an easy task. The woman is a mesmerising performer, immaculately dressed and a remarkable vocalist. Her ability to sustain the high notes and present pitch-perfect renditions of every single song was worth the price of admission itself. It goes without saying that she is in love with live performance – her graciousness when speaking to the audience and the passion shown in the midst of another soaring vocal delivery was a sight to behold.

There was something truly remarkable about watching the music of Florence and The Machine in its pure live form. Here is the exact kind of pop star that is needed to counteract the current climate of worthless fads – the type of female artist we’ll be talking about long after Ke$ha finishes her bottle of Jack. As she finished her set with a rousing “Dog Days Are Over” – which saw both spot-on clapping and jumping in unison from the 2500 strong - you really couldn’t have picked a more perfect way to end the Splendour sideshows fortnight.