Cardiff International Arena
Tonight, Cardiff's premier gig-shed has turned into a family parlour. Five picture frames hang from the stage, gold and old-fashioned, each of them holding a member of Elbow. Every now and then, each portrait breaks its composure ? to scratch a nose, brush a sleeve, or, in Guy Garvey's case, exhale like Henry VIII after a particularly heavy supper. Eventually the lights lower, the frames empty, and the band arrive for real, raising half-empty pint glasses like welcome flags. The gesture is returned by 7,500 people ? and before a note has been played, the audience is theirs.
If any British band belongs to the people in 2011, it's Elbow. By now, we all know their rags-to-riches story: forming in Bury 20 years ago, getting dropped twice, throwing everything into their fourth album, The Seldom Seen Kid (revived romances, personal bereavements and tons of orchestral experiment) before winning the 2008 Mercury prize. Their new album Build a Rocket Boys! is all about hearth and home ? a canny move for a band that set life's little intimacies to a stadium-sized soundtrack.
And in the middle of the m�l�e we find renaissance man Garvey ? 6 Music DJ, thinking woman's crumpet, national treasure. Tonight he is dressed in a three-piece suit and black tie, like a local undertaker or hearty pub landlord. His presence on stage remains refreshingly unshowy, too ? he rocks from heel to toe as if he's trying to keep balance on starboard as the band open up with "The Birds", their new album's opening track. Then he realises he's got a catwalk, which he starts pounding up and down like a bear, his voice switching from smoky growl to high tenor as he rambles ? a voice that has never sounded better than it does tonight. The band beam at him broadly as he does so, happy to make honey, while they let their queen parade. "What we going to do with you?" go the backing vocals; we hear the warmth, and the years, in those words.
And then we're off. Garvey gets a sweat on; his jacket comes off to womanly wolf-whistles. "Hardly, but thank you," he deadpans. The gig becomes a mixture of proggy musical adventure and Phoenix Nights turn. "Join me in worshipping the orb," says Garvey, introducing "Mirrorball", as a glittery sphere descends from the ceiling. He asks if anyone is standing next to someone they love but haven't told yet; later, he gets the crowd to applaud the audience member furthest from the stage. This is one of several antics tonight that veers dangerously towards excessive schmaltz. Elbow just about get away with it, as there is grit behind their pearls.
It helps that they have become a momentous live band, their rockier tracks sounding like juddering juggernauts. "Grounds for Divorce", for example, keens, yearns and growls, Garvey smashing a snare drum as the crowd whoa-oh along. Recent single "Neat Little Rows" also gains extra backbone, the despair and death in its lyrics becoming much more apparent here ("lay my bones on cobblestones, lay my bones in neat little rows"). Even in Elbow's softer songs, however, these shadows linger darkly, most impressively tonight in "The Loneliness of the Tower Crane Driver" ? the song Elbow campaigned to play at the 2008 Mercury prize ceremony, a song about the crushed dreams of a manual worker, rather than one of their album's more conventional ballads. "Send up a prayer in my name," Garvey begs tonight, as the band build the song into a huge, drenching climax. "They say I'm on top of my game," he exhales ? and hands across the crowd rise to dab at eyelashes.
As the night draws on, Garvey returns to the catwalk, this time with a piano and his bandmate, Craig Potter, the man who also produced The Seldom Seen Kid. They play one of only three songs tonight from Elbow's pre-Mercury days, 2005's "Puncture Repair", a song about leaning on a friend who "patches you up", and the rest of the band join them soon after.
The band finish with the expected flourish ? "One Day Like This", their perennial wave-a-lighter number, which will soundtrack emotional TV moments for ever more. As Garvey sings, however, we're reminded it's a song about being hung over, feeling desperate and clinging on to hope, and how we feel better when we pull together. It also becomes clear that Elbow are still part of the crowd's real world, and not the world of rock worship ? a real rarity on a stage of this size. Long may these five ordinary men keep on doing this extraordinary thing.
Sarah Gellman Eliza Dushku Bonnie Jill Laflin Joanna Krupa Ashley Olsen
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