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Everybody dance now. That was the overriding message from Florence + the Machine (FATM) Thursday night at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

If we could only dance like Florence Welch.

Celebrating her band's fifth album, this spring's "Dance Fever," the tall, barefoot Brit in the diaphanous layered, white dress leaped and spun with physicality and grace, like a celestial creature sent to free us from personal and societal traumas.

A ginger-haired ballerina with a siren's opulent, stratospheric voice, Welch mesmerized for 110 minutes. Since her 2011 local debut at the Minnesota Zoo, the indie-rock star has exhibited a commanding presence, part goth drama queen, part earth angel, all beguiling, unrelenting force.

It was a riveting performance by Welch of not always compelling music in front of 7,000 fans in the bowl end of the arena.

FATM offered 12 of the 14 tracks from "Dance Fever," which is not about clubbing but about the transformative powers of dance.

Welch has explained that the project was inspired by choreomania, a medieval European practice wherein throngs of people, in order to relieve themselves of stress, danced until they were exhausted, injured or dead.

She even wrote a song called "Choreomania," which she offered Thursday. "Suddenly, I'm dancing to imaginary music," she sang. And she danced — did she ever dance — and darted into the crowd as the Machine sped up the beat.

The ensuing "Kiss With a Fist," a full-tilt rocker from FATM's 2008 debut album, found Welch doing a jittery jig before pogoing in overdrive. This concert featured the most pogoing — onstage and in the crowd — this side of a punk-rock gig.

Between her Titanic vocal explosions, Welch, 36, occasionally spoke in a strikingly soft voice. She pointed out that much of "Dance Fever" was written during the pandemic when her anxiety over never performing again was at its peak. That anxiety was apparent in her conversation, lyrics and nervous energy.

The album, the singer said, is about the "resurrection of dance" as she eased into "My Love" with its banging disco-y beat.

Welch resurrected songs from earlier albums, including the bouncy "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)," the rocking "What Kind of Man" and the galvanizing 2009 hit "Dog Days Are Over," during which she paused and asked the fans to put away their cellphones for a moment and cut loose. They obliged on both counts.

Working on a modest platform decorated with candelabras draped with gauzy white fabric, Welch bounded all over the stage, skipping, scurrying and spinning. A couple of times, she jumped into the pit in front of the stage, and once sprinted through the main floor crowd while singing.

Adding to the drama was the singer's propensity for back lighting, silhouettes on scrims and theatrical gestures with her hands and face, which were as expressive as her singing voice. Meanwhile, her six anonymous musicians stood off to the sides in the shadows, never introduced.

Including so much material from the new album slowed momentum at times, though some of the new numbers, including "Prayer Factory," "Free" and "Choreomania" were among the night's highlights.

For Welch, this fourth gig on FATM's current North American tour was highly emotional and clearly liberating. Her pandemic days are over.

"I'm free when I'm dancing," she proclaimed in the song "Free." Aren't we all?

Byron Buxton is back.

The Twins added the designated hitter to the roster and put Alex Kirilloff on the 10-day injured list before a do-or-die Game 4 in the ALDS against the Houston Astros.

First pitch at sold-out Target Field is 6:07 p.m. (FS1), and the Astros lead the best-of-five series 2-1.

Buxton, who will not start tonight, was left off the wild-card roster because of a nagging knee injury. The 29-year-old has not played in the field at all this season. His right knee has been an issue all year, and it flared up on him when he tried to play in center field in September during a minor-league rehabilitation game with the St. Paul Saints.

An All-Star in 2022, Buxton played only 85 games this season, hitting .207 with 17 home runs.

Kirilloff went 0-for-2 with a strikeout Tuesday in the Twins' 9-1 loss and is 0-for-9 this postseason. He has a shoulder injury that has bothered him during the season as well and put him on the injury list for a time.

The change in the roster had to be approved by the MLB commissioner's office.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said the shoulder injury got to the point where Kirilloff couldn't hit in Game 3; he was pinch-hit for by Donovan Solano, who will start at first base tonight.

Rookie left fielder Matt Wallner, who is 0-for-8 in the playoffs, is also sitting tonight. Michael A. Taylor will play center with Willi Castro moving to left.

Joe Ryan, who has not pitched in the postseason, starts tonight for the Twins against righthander Jose Urquidy, who is also making his 2023 postseason debut.

ASTROS LINEUP

Jose Altuve, 2B

Alex Bregman, 3B

Yordan Alvarez, DH

Kyle Tucker, RF

Jose Abreu, 1B

Michael Brantley, LF

Chas McCormick, CF

Jeremy Pena, SS

Martin Maldonado, C

TWINS LINEUP

Edouard Julien, DH

Jorge Polanco, 2B

Royce Lewis, 3B

Max Kepler, RF

Carlos Correa, SS

Ryan Jeffers, C

Willi Castro, LF

Donovan Solano, 1B

Michael A. Taylor, CF

WELCH, Minn. — Matchbox Twenty fans were probably starting to feel like they were getting pushed around.

A thrice-postponed show rescheduled to Saturday June 10, 2023, was delayed by heavy rains.

However, the storms that swept across Southeast Minnesota broke the heat and brought a cool, summer breeze to the Treasure Island Amphitheater. Gates opened late, but about 16,000 fans who had waited since 2020 for this show packed the venue.

“How many of you thought this (show) wasn’t going to happen?” Rob Thomas, lead singer and songwriter for Matchbox Twenty asked the crowd after performing a pair of songs. It was happening, he reassured them.

The original show, announced in early 2020 was postponed due to severe weather. Two other attempts to schedule were canceled due to COVID-19. This year, the group finally got their “Slow Dream Tour” rolling.

Thomas asked the crowd to join him in staying the moment and just “celebrate being human.”

Poised to start the next song on the heels of the crowd’s thunderous response, instead, Thomas heard in his ear monitor, “hold for guitar,” as one of the musicians dealt with a tech issue.

For other bands, that kind of hiccup could kill their momentum and test their goodwill. Thomas, true to his word to be in the moment and “be human,” rolled with it. His joy and amusement at the rock star equivalent of tripping on the starting gun was genuine and infectious.

At 51 years old, Thomas’ performance was full of energy. His vocals are as strong and clear as any of the hits he recorded 25 years ago.

He wasn’t looking bad either as the crowd gave a roar when he shed his jacket a few songs into the set.

“Oh, calm down,” he said. “Like you’ve never seen a 51-year-old man take his jacket off.”

People who came for those hits weren’t disappointed. After an hourlong rain delay, Matchbox Twenty did away with the pretense of an encore and played some of their best-known songs.

The crowd skewing somewhat older, but with a large representation of younger people as well, didn’t sleep through the new material, much of it from the group’s latest album released at the end of May, “Where the Light Goes.”

Early on, there was a shout out for a hit, but Thomas adeptly refocused that energy.

“We’ll get there,” he said. “This isn’t request hour, brother; this is shut-up-and-listen hour.”

And listen they did.

The crowd hushed when Thomas and guitarist Kyle Cook played the emotional, if angsty, ballad “If You’re Gone” in a toned-down duo performance. Mother nature supplied a light mist of rain that couldn’t have been better timed by a production company.

Strategically saving mega-hits “Push,” “I’m Not Crazy” and other songs to the end kept the crowd hungry with anticipation while hanging on every word of new material and slower songs. It also ended the evening with a satisfying finale.

The sound reached the entirety of a spread out crowd. However, close to the stage, the sound system didn’t blast anyone’s ears or completely drown out the more knowledgeable fans who were singing along.

Throughout the show, the band and Thomas especially were visibly feeding off the joy of the audience. The entire group emanated their joy of playing music and the crowd reciprocated in a perfect, but too often, elusive, feedback loop.

For fans like Tyler and Angie Gehrking who traveled from Willmar, Minnesota, for their fourth attempt and second trip to see Matchbox Twenty, it was worth the wait.

News reporting

The Doobie Brothers played Friday at the Treasure Island Ampitheater at Treasure Island Resort & Casino in Welch, MN.

The Doobie Brothers brought their “50^th Anniversary Tour” to the Treasure Island Amphitheater Friday evening. The group – founded in 1970 and 2020 inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – can be forgiven for some slight fibbing on the tour name. Pat Simmons, the only constant member of the group through the decades and different lineups, pointed out this flexible branding, noting that it was more like a 53^rd Anniversary – but no reason to quibble.

The Doobie Brothers got their start in what is now California’s Silicon Valley, a year before the first single-chip microprocessor was invented at Intel and jumpstarted the booming tech industry of today. The band became early favorites amongst the Hells Angels long before they made it big among the general public. Today, they have sold over 50 million records worldwide.

For this concert, it was raining at Treasure Island for much of the afternoon and early evening, but cleared up just in time for the performance before an enthusiastic crowd. Doobie Brothers fans tend to divide into two camps. First are those who favor the hard-driving boogie rock of the group’s early years (e.g., “China Grove”, “Listen to the Music”, and “Rockin’ Down the Highway”), with Tom Johnston doing most of the writing and lead vocals. Second are those who favor the blue-eyed soul of later years (e.g., “Real Love”, “What a Fool Believes”, and “Minute by Minute”), when Michael McDonald was brought in to help with the vocals. (This was a time when Johnston had some medical and other issues.)

Friday night, however, there was no need to choose. Both Johnston and McDonald were present, joined on vocals by Simmons (the writer and vocalist on the group’s perhaps-signature song, “Black Water”) and John McFee (vocalist and multi-instrumentalist). As always, the group was very ably supported by a large band (including, as is long tradition, two drummers), often featuring Marc Russo on saxophone.

Over an energetic two-hours-plus performance, the band played every hit, while adding three good pieces from their 2021 album Liberté: “Better Days”, “Don’t Ya Mess with Me”, and “Easy”. They also played quite a few “deep cuts” from their classic albums (e.g., “Eyes of Silver”, “Clear as the Driven Snow”, and “Another Park, Another Sunday”).

For a band that had been known for hard partying as well as biker gang audiences, it was indeed heart-warming to see so many members of the group in good voice – and slashing electric guitar – 50-plus years on.

The award-winning vocal ensemble The Manhattan Transfer. Photo by F. Scott Schafer-Gros.

After 50 years of singing – and one last album, appropriately entitled Fifty, The Manhattan Transfer is on its farewell tour. This Grammy Award-winning, four-part vocal harmony group lands at the State Theatre in Minneapolis on October 12.

The Manhattan Transfer – named after a novel whose title memorializes a demolished rail station for passengers inbound to Manhattan – was originally created by bass singer Tim Hauser. This original lineup included Janis Siegel (alto), Alan Paul (tenor), and Laurel Masse (soprano). The group has stayed remarkably unchanged over the decades, with just two alterations: Cheryl Bentyne replacing Laurel Masse in 1979, and Trist Curless replacing Tim Hauser after Hauser passed away in 2014.

Consistency seems to have its virtues: The Manhattan Transfer has had incredible success, including 10 Grammy Awards (20 nominations in total), 29 records racking up millions of sales, and numerous pop and jazz chart hits. Their genre-crossing included several firsts, such as being the first group to pick up awards in multiple genres at the Grammy Awards – in 1981, their “Boy From New York City” (which hit number 7 on the pop charts) brought in a Grammy for Best Pop Performance, while their “Until I Met You (Corner Pocket)” took home a Grammy for Best Jazz Fusion Performance in the same ceremony. Some of the group’s other well-known songs include “Route 66”, “Birdland”, and “Java Jive.” On their most recent album, recorded with the WDR Funkhausorchester, there are new versions of some Manhattan Transfer favorites, like “Chanson D’Amour”, “What Goes Around Comes Around”, “Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone”, as well as the Beach Boys standard, “God Only Knows”.

Five decades is a long time in any field, and while the group members still enjoy singing together, The Manhattan Transfer members report that the travel has become harder – but they are going to do it, just one more time. At their State Theatre performance, they will be supported by the Diva Jazz Orchestra, described as “an ensemble of 15 extremely talented and versatile musicians who just happen to be women”, headed by their own “swinging drummer” Sherrie Maricle. As the promotional materials add, tongue-in-cheek, “They can’t help it – they were born that way”.

The Manhattan Transfer’s State Theatre stop is one last chance to hear about the music of Birdland, the Mohair suit of the Boy from New York City, and the joys of hitting the road on Route 66.

Josh Welch of Prior Lake is one of the eight candidates who filed for three seats on the Prior Lake-Savage Area School Board. There were far fewer at the time he filled out his application.

The fact that he’s coming up against seven other contenders did surprise him, he said, but it’s actually an encouraging thought.

“I think that it does show the fact that there’s a concern about the district,” he said. “It’s nice to see community engagement. I love to see people interested.”

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Welch grew up in La Crescent, Minn. He initially went to the University of Minnesota in hopes of getting a degree in chemical engineering, but quickly realized that wasn’t what he was interested in. He changed his focus to political science before eventually settling on computer science and finishing his degree at Metropolitan State University. He later earned a master’s degree in business from St. Mary’s University.

He currently works in Edina, as an IT professional for Wells Fargo. As someone who works with technology every day, he considers technology education an important part of students’ futures.

“The key thing is making sure they’re not just equipping them with devices, but equipping them with the knowledge to use it going forward,” he said.

Welch has lived in the area for 10 years, and for a while now, he’s toyed with the idea of running for office.

“I would have considered it, but I never quite felt it was the right time,” he said.

Time passed. His two daughters, now both in grade school, got older. His schedule opened up a little.

Then came the failed referendum election in May. As a father, Welch worries about the rising enrollment in the district, the potential overcrowding of classrooms and the school system that educates his daughters.

“It’s kind of a critical time in the district right now,” he said. “It’s important for us to get something done.”

On top of that, a number of his friends and acquaintances have encouraged him to finally get his name on the ballot. At this juncture, he wants to bring his “level-headed, thoughtful” consideration style to the conversation.

Welch thinks the biggest challenge ahead for the school district is addressing growth and building a consensus that will get something passed — sooner rather than later. He hopes to bring an attitude to the table that will help the school board come together.

“One of the greatest strengths that I’ve had has been consensus building,” he said. “I’m not someone who comes in with an agenda. I approach conversations in a fairly slow fashion, take my time and consider the best resolution.”

Another big challenge: keeping an eye on the global marketplace.

“Technology is, of course, an ongoing trend,” he said. “We need to make sure kids are getting a lot of experience in that particular area.”

Welch hasn’t served on boards in the past. He said he tends to contribute more on an individual level: volunteering at Jeffers Pond Elementary School, where his daughters go to class. He spends a lot of his spare time chasing them around, reading, cooking and brewing his own beer. Going forward, some of that time will be spent getting his name out there and vying for one of those three spots.

“Strong schools contribute to a strong community,” he said. “That’s going to pay dividends in the long run.”

Motto:Start with the basics. A classic suit and dress shoes, a good sweater, boots and a rain jacket. Resist the flip-flops.

Those who know him say Tripp Welch has a passion for propriety — in the workplace, on the soccer field and in his outlook on style.

At Mayo Clinic, Welch is an administrator for the Division of Infectious Diseases and for Customer Relationship Management. In addition, he serves on Mayo Clinic's Dress and Decorum Committee, among others.

Welch, 48, describes himself as "a father of three and husband to one. Abby, 10, Molly, 13, Tommy, 15, and wife, Dawn."

Involved in Rochester youth soccer, Welch plays on indoor and outdoor soccer teams and has served several area boards and other groups, including Child Care Resource and Referral, First Steps Evaluation Accountability Committee, Rochester Art Center and Minnesota Children's Museum Rochester.

Please tell us about your overall style.

Competently appropriate. What I mean by this is that I try to make sure whatever I am wearing conveys confidence to those around me, that I know what I am doing. I firmly believe that we communicate to others, as well as to ourselves, clues as to how we should behave as well as how we will perform any given task.

Has your style changed with your places in life?

Sure it has. It has always matched the role I was playing. When in college, I looked like a college kid. But after I graduated, I left that look and moved on to the next look. Unemployed!

You came here after college in Virginia some 20 years ago. Has your style graduated to reflect the land of ice hockey?

I would say my style, especially in winter, is Minnesota now — practical, durable, unassuming yet built for warmth. There are many great companies in this part of the country that make adopting the Minnesota style easy — Duluth Trading, Land's End, etc.

What should every well-dressed gentleman have in his wardrobe?

Start with the basics. Dark blue and grey suits and brown dress shoes. Mid-priced jeans. A good sweater — solid color. Work boots, casual shoes. A well-constructed rain jacket. Keep the flip flops for the beach and shower.

Something in your wardrobe people would find surprising?

I have a large collection of concert T-shirts from when I followed some bands closely. I don't wear them, but too many great memories tied to them to ever get rid of them.

What do you hope to impart to your children about style?

It's funny that you ask this. Tommy really, really, really hates shopping, so for school and casual clothes, what he has is pretty much what Dawn bought for him. But honestly, he only wears jeans and a variation of a gray sweatshirt. When he needs to dress up for something, he wears my clothes, so he looks pretty much like me. As for the girls, especially as they are entering into their teen years, I am strongly pushing the idea of potato sacks. Honestly, Molly and Abby are intuitively great dressers.

Words of style wisdom?

There are three things to remember when dressing, and in this order: 1. fit. 2. proportion. 3. appropriateness. The fit is pretty obvious, but sometimes the label sizing of the garment can be tough to get over. Proportion is not just the size of the patterns or accessories, but also the size of certain body parts compared to other body parts. As for appropriateness, one of my favorite quotes is from Clinton Kelly: "What you wear tells the world how you expect to be treated."