You have to hand it to Guy Garvey. An unlikely front man if ever there was one, his ill-fitting suit, unkempt facial fuzz and heavy-ish build are totally at odds with the idealised rock star image. Yet on the final night of Elbow’s current tour, he has the audience in the palm of his hands (almost literally, as he high-fives anyone who stretches out to touch the hem of his garment). The stage set resembles a retro hotel lobby, with gilded picture frames, transformed into video screens, art deco chandeliers and a mirror-ball hanging above the centre of the venue. And with a string-section to flesh out their huge sound, it’s an impressive audio-visual experience to say the least.
“You’re as cool as fuck, Dublin,” Garvey tells the crowd, before strutting awkwardly down a ramp that stretched out into the centre of the arena. “But if you’re thinking of smoking a Gauloise and drinking a glass of wine, forget it as there’s going to be a lot of cheesy, interactive stuff tonight.” He wasn’t wrong and he led the compliant hordes through several sing-along rehearsals of the more anthemic songs in the set, including ‘With Love’ and ‘Grounds for Divorce’.
Despite their indie origins, Elbow’s sound has adapted well to large venues and the keening melodies are cleverly underpinned with sonic layers and textures (after all, this is the band who recently won a “dynamic range” award for their current album, Build A Rocket Boys.) From it, the intimate ‘Lippy Kid’ and slightly unsettling ‘The Birds’ sit comfortably alongside the better-known and more crowd-pleasing material from The Seldom Seen Kid, including favourites such as ‘Mirrorball’, ‘Bones of You’ and the soaring, majestic ‘Loneliness of a Tower Crane Drive’. Predictably the evening is rounded off with the joyous, life-affirming roller-coaster of emotions that is ‘One Day Like This’.