Elbow

Elbow

Mar 07

“SORRY WE’RE LATE”

Where: SSE Hydro
When: 5 March 2018
Support: John Grant

This gig was supposed to happen three days earlier on Friday night but snow intervened; however, the venue was free on Monday night, which as Guy Garvey pointed out was very lucky as normally you have to book a year in advance for the Hydro. So we gathered (or rather about, Guy estimated, three-quarters of the original audience gathered) on a wet, cold Monday night to have our hearts warmed by brazier of humanity that is Elbow.

As a bonus the support act was the witty, scathing, deep voiced, bearded John Grant, who tonight radiates a relaxed joy from the stage. His career and musical nous has blossomed since he left the under-rated The Czars – all three solo albums are worthy of inclusion in anyone’s collection. The set is a mini-greatest hits and with the highlights being the three title tracks from his albums Pale Green Ghosts, Grey Tickles, Black Pressure, and a glorious Queen of Denmark. There was also the added bonus of seeing the legendary Budgie playing drums!

Elbow play a two hour set and, given that the tour is ostensibly promoting their The Best Of… album, they play songs from each of their seven albums. Gigs:Glasgow is very happy that this includes, as the sole offering (sadly) from Cast of Thousands, our ‘Song Of The Week’ from last week (to coincide when they should have played) ‘Fugitive Motel’.

Guy is his usual charming, affable self – his innate inclusive tendency shown by his pointing to individual members of the crowd throughout the set. This charm sometimes colours non-believers view of the band a safe and cosy but the wrongheadedness of this view is demonstrated early in the set with the scathing ‘Leaders of the Free World’. ‘The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver’ shows off just how good a vocalist Guy is – he makes holding this elegiac song’s stately progress seem deceptively easy.

The genius of Guy the frontman is that he makes the audience feel that they are central to the performance (and they are!). He dedicates ‘Lippy Kids’ to them and they respond with by beautifully, anthemically singing the “Build A Rocket Boy” refrain. ‘Magnificent (She Says)’ from the latest album Little Fictions is delivered imperiously and seems certain to be a set mainstay for years to come (see sample video below).

The highlight of the night is ‘Grounds For Divorce’. Before it begins Guy, at his avuncular best, is conducting and coaching the crowd into singing variants of “whoa-oo-oo-ho” – he says he feels as if he is playing a giant brandy glass -and they again rise to the occasion. He checks several times with the band if the crowd has managed to get the right key before they launch onto the song, its heft and muscle only challenged on the night by the earlier rendition of ‘Any Day Now’, the first track on their first album. For the encore we were first treated to ‘Kindling’, with John Grant joining his brother in arms Guy on vocal duties, before the band ended with the always uplifting ‘One Day Like This’.

Elbow as a band are not given their proper due as musicians or for the complexity of their music; they truly do play independent rock, they never trumpet that fact that their music is rarely straightforward and because it is often low-key in tone they don’t get the due that is paid to more bombastic bands. And, as has been the case whenever GG has seen Elbow live, the playing of the band members (Mark Potter on lead guitar, his brother Craig on keys, and Pete Turner on bass) is subtlety superb.

Recently, after a quarter of a century in the band, their drummer Richard Jupp left (and despite intimations that this might not have been an amicable departure Guy twice tonight makes warm comments about him). For this tour he is replaced by Alex Reeves, who fills in with aplomb. The band were also backed by a consummate female four piece providing brass, string and vocal backing (the brass section’s short blast of ‘Summertime’ was a surprising joy).

Huge videos behind band and to left and right of stage offer striking black and white close-ups of the stage action. The other significant visual is provided during ‘Mirrorball’ when the whole venue is drenched in a mirrorball effect.

The evening was a wonderful communal experience, warm and humorous – as when the crowd urge Guy to tickle Craig Potter when they do ‘Puncture Repair’ together or when, as the band finally leave the stage, the crowd spontaneously bursts into a rendition of ‘Flower Of Scotland’.

 

Band page

 

Sample video