BANDS that play arenas and win – your U2s, your Queens, your AC/DCs – are supposed to be larger-than-life rock giants with enough self-obsessed charisma to light the National Grid.
Elbow aren't like that. Laconic and down-to-earth, they look – and let's be fair, sometimes sound – like a group you'd see at the Bodega or the Maze.WATCH: Elbow - One Day Like This
Elbow - one day like this on MUZU.TV.
Four of the five members are so resolutely anonymous it's hard to remember what they look like even when you're watching them play and frontman Guy Garvey would probably be more at home in the snug bar than fronting a state-of-the-art audio-visual spectacular at the Capital FM Arena.
But, somehow, that's where he is. And he's alarmingly good at it, too. With his heartfelt, keening voice cutting through the arena's thickly booming echo, he was the emotional heart of the show.
He was also drily funny, squeezing the comic riff of having the audience boo at every mention of Kevin Costner and Bryan Adams (for their crimes against the legend of Robin Hood) within an inch of its life, our big brother and best mate combined.
And that, coupled with a brilliant light show and dazzlingly hi-tech projections, plus the tasteful addition of brass and strings, was what made the night so memorable.
On a tender The Bones Of You, a ravishingly well-lit and spine-tinglingly beautiful Mirrorball or taking their stations on a second, smaller stage in the heart of the audience for a version of The Night Will Always Win that left the recorded version in the shade, this was a band reflecting their listeners rather than preaching at them.When Garvey sang "You're not The Man Who Fell to Earth, you're the Man Of La Mancha", he could easily have been singing about himself.
At other times, though, it seemed too restrained, too polite, for the real top drawer – one song came way too close to the sound of late 1970s Phil Collins-era Genesis to have any real impact, and the middle section often seemed in danger of dissolving into needily sentimental aural wallpaper.
But there was always some grit shining through: an untitled new song, played in public for the first time, was promising, Grounds For Divorce blasted away the cobwebs and brilliant songs like The Birds and Lippy Kids, from last year's underrated Build A Rocket Boys! album, were so bracing that by the time the inevitable encore of One Day Like This rolled round, there was nothing left but to surrender.
Elbow aren't like that. Laconic and down-to-earth, they look – and let's be fair, sometimes sound – like a group you'd see at the Bodega or the Maze.WATCH: Elbow - One Day Like This
Elbow - one day like this on MUZU.TV.
Four of the five members are so resolutely anonymous it's hard to remember what they look like even when you're watching them play and frontman Guy Garvey would probably be more at home in the snug bar than fronting a state-of-the-art audio-visual spectacular at the Capital FM Arena.
But, somehow, that's where he is. And he's alarmingly good at it, too. With his heartfelt, keening voice cutting through the arena's thickly booming echo, he was the emotional heart of the show.
He was also drily funny, squeezing the comic riff of having the audience boo at every mention of Kevin Costner and Bryan Adams (for their crimes against the legend of Robin Hood) within an inch of its life, our big brother and best mate combined.
And that, coupled with a brilliant light show and dazzlingly hi-tech projections, plus the tasteful addition of brass and strings, was what made the night so memorable.
On a tender The Bones Of You, a ravishingly well-lit and spine-tinglingly beautiful Mirrorball or taking their stations on a second, smaller stage in the heart of the audience for a version of The Night Will Always Win that left the recorded version in the shade, this was a band reflecting their listeners rather than preaching at them.When Garvey sang "You're not The Man Who Fell to Earth, you're the Man Of La Mancha", he could easily have been singing about himself.
At other times, though, it seemed too restrained, too polite, for the real top drawer – one song came way too close to the sound of late 1970s Phil Collins-era Genesis to have any real impact, and the middle section often seemed in danger of dissolving into needily sentimental aural wallpaper.
But there was always some grit shining through: an untitled new song, played in public for the first time, was promising, Grounds For Divorce blasted away the cobwebs and brilliant songs like The Birds and Lippy Kids, from last year's underrated Build A Rocket Boys! album, were so bracing that by the time the inevitable encore of One Day Like This rolled round, there was nothing left but to surrender.
