Elbow at Massive Attack's Meltdown 2008

Elbow are an English band from Manchester, who have been active from the late 1990s.

 

See You Tube video - www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaNM2BTlj9w

 

Acclaimed for their innovative sound and frontman Guy Garvey's candid, evocative lyrics, Elbow has received vast critical acclaim and been endorsed by major artists Blur, R.E.M. and U2. The Velvet Underground's co-founder John Cale selected Elbow's "Switching Off" as one of his eight chosen records on the BBC's "Desert Island Discs" radio programme. Commercial success, however, has yet to match Elbow's critical acclaim and status among fans.

 

Lead singer Guy Garvey met guitarist Mark Potter at a Sixth Form College in 1990 at the age of 16. Potter asked Garvey to sing in a band he was in with drummer Richard Jupp and bassist Pete Turner. Together, the four men formed the band Mr Soft. (The name was later changed to Soft.) Mark Potter's brother Craig Potter joined the band soon after on keyboards. By 1997, they had changed their name a third time to Elbow, signed a deal with Island Records, and recorded their debut album with producer Steve Osborne. However, when Island was bought out by major label Universal, the band was dropped in a mass cull and the album never released.

 

They continued to record on the iconic independent label Uglyman, and released The Noisebox EP, The Newborn EP, and The Any Day Now EP, which were given extensive airplay by BBC Radio 1 .

 

Their debut album, Asleep in the Back, released on V2 in 2001, was hailed as a seminal album of the new millennium, gaining them a Mercury Music Prize nomination and a BRIT Award nomination. Their second album, Cast of Thousands - a reference to their performance at Glastonbury in 2002, when they recorded thousands of people singing, "We still believe in love, so fuck you" - sealed their reputation as innovators in UK music when released in 2003.

 

In 2004, Elbow went on an unofficial tour of Cuba, becoming the first British band ever to play a concert outside Havana. The tour was made into a short film by British documentary maker Irshad Ashraf. In the same year, their song Fallen Angel appeared in the film 9 Songs, notable as being regarded as the most sexually explicit film ever to be awarded an 18 Certificate by the British Board of Film Classification.

 

Elbow's innovation in the studio has invited work with other bands, notably Editors and I Am Kloot, the latter whose debut album was produced by Guy Garvey. Their third album, Leaders of the Free World, was entirely self-produced at Blueprint Studios in Salford, a space the band hired for the duration of their recording sessions. They teamed up with video artists The Soup Collective to produce an integrated music and video DVD. However, despite furthur critical acclaim, the album faltered commercially, and soon the band were dropped from V2 in 2006. They have since signed to Fiction Records.

 

The band contributed the song "Snowball" to the 2005 War Child benefit album Help: a Day in the Life. In addition, an unreleased track titled "Beats For Two" was used in the closing titles of the 2004 film Inside I'm Dancing. Garvey also returned to I Am Kloot as co-producer for their single "Maybe I Should." He continues to work closely with Manchester indie label Skinny Dog.

 

Their album Leaders of the Free World has been mentioned a couple of times in the final two Inspector Rebus-novels.

 

The band completed their fourth studio album, The Seldom Seen Kid in late 2007. The band self-produced, mixed and recorded the album themselves without other outside help.

 

Their acoustic cover of Destiny's Child's "Independent Women", recorded exclusively for a BBC Radio 1 session, was turned into a popular web animation by Rathergood.com's Joel Veitch. The animation features a band of flat-capped kittens "performing" the song.

 

The band is named after a line in the BBC TV mini-series The Singing Detective which says that the word "elbow" is the most sensuous word in the English language, not for its definition, but for how it feels to say it.

 

Some personal reviews;

 

"If I never go to another gig again I could die happy after last night! From start to finish an amazing night, Fleet Foxes supported and were brilliant, very funny and very talented guys.

 

Then Elbow, Guy walked on wearing all black and a trilby (this is relevant for later), started with Station Approach and that set the tone for the rest of the show, the fact that the venue was seated mad no difference to the incredilble atmosphere. Guy waved to his family who were in the Roayl Box, then we had Bones of You, Leaders of The Free World (dedicated to George W), Grounds for Divorce, Mirrorball (with 3 mirrorballs sitting on the stage, creating a great effect), The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver and Great Expectations.

 

As Great Expectations finished, what sounded like a tape of Any Day Now started in the background, it was a choir of 35 blokes, dressed all in black wearing trilby's. They had all been recruited specifically for this show and had 2 days practice. Guy called them Geoff not sure which. Geoff stayed for the rest of the show.

 

Next was Starlings, with trumpeteers in 4 of the boxes at the side of the stage as well as the guys on the stage, and the mixing desk man. Followed by a song they had only played once live before, because "we are shit at it, and if Geoff wasn't here we wouldn't try it" Presuming Ed (Rest Easy). Some Riot was next and a storming version of Newborn which got a standing ovation. Geoff was still joining in with every song.

 

Then Grace Under Pressure, which Guy cocked up after Geof had started it off, the song finished with Geoff and Guy giving each other the finger Stops was the penultimate song, before the whole crowd stood up for One Day Like This, which blew the roof off the Festival Hall.

 

I didn't think I had the words to describe this gig, but I have waffled on now. Amazing."

 

"Can we have a whip round to get a coach to ferry Geoff (Jeff?) to Glastonbury?"

 

"Thats the first time i have seen them as a headliners.I took my friend along,him only knowing one song,he was in tears,he couldnt speak.the loneliness of a tower crane driver,the tears were running down my face .

geoff you were fantastic,such a special night,a special band.everyone rocking at the end."

 

"I went with my wife, the balcony was rocking!! She must have cried at least three times during the course of the gig.

The only time in my life i've being to a gig that has made me feel so emotional, i thought i was going to burst into tears."

 

"Thank you for Elbow for a night a lot of people will never forget"

 

"I feel so priviledged to have seen them play 'Presuming Ed'....well all of that evening, but especially that song as it was a one off.

 

Craig walked off the stage part way through Newborn, and even though Guy had said to us all you don't need to scuttle off to the toilet discreetly(as it was a seated gig, and more obvious when people went in or out) just go for it, I thought surely Craig wasn't that desperate to go in the middle of Newborn? but he soon emerged high up in the wall above Guy to be seated with his back to us on a massive organ to finish the last part of the song...amazing!

 

One day like this ended with all the Geoffs coming to the middle of the stage and then they were tossing their trilby hats at the audience, and some general hat throwing went on through the rest of the song.

I have one of Geoffs hats with me now, and a set list.

Oh, and thanks Geoff for bringing something extra to Elbow's music last night."

 

"Last night's gig was fantastic. I haven't been to such an uplifting performance in ages. Great songs, great performances. The choir and the arrangements really did the Seldom Seen Kid tracks justice. What a way to start the week!"

 

"Would only be repeating what other people have said about previous gigs - they were simply awesome! But here's a few things that made last night's gig particularly special:

 

-The choir, "Geoff"

-The way the RFH was lit up during 'Mirrorball'

-Craig legging it up to and playing the RFH pipe organ during 'Newborn'

-The kids in the boxes playing brass on 'Starlings'

-'Grace Under Pressure'

-The whole venue on it's feet for 'One Day Like This' and the stage filled with people and voices."

 

Review from Musicomh.com

 

Elbow + Fleet Foxes @ Royal Festival Hall, London, 16 June 2008

 

We live in an unfair world. It's a world whose leaders permit, and sometimes perpetuate, famine, war, suffering and the return of Steps. A world in which a defining moment in the career of one of the greatest bands that Britain has produced in a generation can be overshadowed completely by a bunch of sappy MOR balladeers playing a free gig a couple of miles south.

 

Mancunians Elbow are that rarest of breeds - a British band that just keeps getting better with every passing year and album. Lead singer Guy Garvey's troupe just keep on delivering innovative, understated and jaw-droppingly beautiful records. So while all eyes in the industry were on Coldplay's Brixton Academy show, Elbow, in the fine company of current buzz band Fleet Foxes, were staging their own masterpiece at the far more salubrious Royal Festival Hall.

 

Plaudits have showered down upon openers Fleet Foxes like the rain that is certain to drench the Glastonbury crowds next week. Everywhere you look, music journalists are dusting off their 'Big Book of Arcade Fire Cliches' to herald the arrival of the new baroque pop messiahs.

 

Luckily, the band are the real deal, kicking off with a jaw-dropping acapella version of Sun It Rises, filling a venue that Brian Wilson has called his 'spiritual home' with a pitch-perfect Beach Boys homage. Much has been made of the band's folky elements, but they prove they can rock out with the best of them - Your Protector is as good a backwoods stomp as you'll find outside of a Kings of Leon record, while set highlight White Winter Hymnal begins as a nursery rhyme-simple chant before morphing into a soaring, Love-esque harmony that transports you to the snowbound mountains and forests Pecknold eulogises.

 

After a set of such precocious excellence, old hands Elbow need to pull something special out of the bag to avoid being foreshadowed by their support act. And, incredibly, they do, to quite comprehensively show the young pretenders who's boss. Despite the scruffy, shambling exterior, Elbow have always bought a certain amount of panache to their concerts and the group turn in a performance that is simply stunning in its emotional intensity.

 

The band, with Garvey nattily attired in a black suit and bowler hat, dispense with the noise early. The victorious chant of Station Approach bounces around the Festival Hall like a terrace chant, while the creepy Bones Of You sees him pugilistically rolling up his sleeves as if to take on the world. This he does a few seconds later, dedicating the caustic Leaders of the Free World to 'London's special guest' George Bush.

 

It's easy to forget how good a band Elbow really are. It seems they've always been with us - despite having only released four records - ploughing a lone miserable furrow while contemporaries like go supernova.

 

Halfway through, the band takes a step back to welcome onto the stage a thirty-strong male voice choir, all dressed identically to the frontman. As the never-ending stream of mini-Garveys troop on stage, they chant the unmistakable introduction to early single Anyday Now over and over, and the band slide into the song. It's a piece of pure theatre, bettered almost immediately during Starlings. After the lights drop, and the song's electronica opening thrums around the auditorium, Garvey, bassist Pete Turner and guitarist Mark Potter are picked out in spotlights as they play a single note trumpet fanfare directed to the venue's royal box. In the box are another group of trumpeters, playing the fanfare back to them. It's one of those moments of audience interaction that Elbow seem remarkably good at.

 

If the rest of the concert failed to live up to this moment, it is understandable. However, the quality never drops - Grace Under Pressure's 'We still believe in love, So fuck you' coda is beautiful in its simplicity, New Born sees keyboardist Craig Potter climbing up into the now-illuminated organ behind the stage like a long-haired phantom of the opera, drawing a standing ovation from every member of the audience.

 

During set closer One Day Like This the choir march to the front of the stage and hundreds of the crowd rush to meet them. As they finish, they place their hats on members of the audience's heads, as if they are anointing their disciples, and Guy Garvey thanks the fans for 'the gig of their lives'. It's hard to disagree with the sentiment.

 

- Rob Watson

Done