‘We won’t forget this one, Wembley ! Thank you so much.’
Elbow, the most British bands of them all, played to a sold-out crowd in Wembley Arena on Tuesday. The date was added after huge demand for their show at the O2 in December.
Although their music is not one you’d expect to hear in big rooms, fields or stadiums, Elbow have already proved in the past they knew how to play to huge crowds. Their sets at Glastonbury in 2008 and last year in 2011 are still in everyone’s minds.
Accompanied by their usual horn band, Elbow took to the stage starting with ‘High Ideals’, off their latest album Build A Rocket Boys!, released a year ago. Guy Garvey immediately walked towards the center of the arena, pointing to people in the audience, as if he wanted to make everyone feel personally involved in the show.
It would be impossible to write an article on an Elbow concert without talking about its utterly charismatic leader, Guy Garvey. Not only does he hit perfectly every single note, but he also speaks and interacts a lot with the public throughout the show, giving it a real warm and passionate feeling. At times, the audience is even turning its back to the band in order to watch Garvey serenading the crowd from his islet-like area near the middle of the arena. It didn’t take too long before everyone was conquered by his incredible charisma, with all eyes turned towards him.
After a few songs, he asked : ‘Do you feel settled in now ?’ ‘We do’, he added to a crowd that seemed to drink in his every word. The whole show was unbelievably good, from the soft and melodic lines of ‘Grace Under Pressure’ and the hard-hitting ‘Leaders Of The Free World’, to a fantastic new song called ‘Charge’. ‘This one has become kind of a ritual I guess’, Garvey said before launching into an intense and fiery version of ‘Grounds For Divorce’. Joking about the unnamed horn band that accompanied them, Guy Garvey encouraged everyone in the audience to think about a name. ‘Horny is too easy’, he then added.
One of the highlights of the concert was their stripped-back rendition of ‘The Night Will Always Win’, followed by ‘Weather To Fly’, which they performed near the centre of the room, all standing around a piano, as if they were playing music in a pub in the north of England. The whole show then reflected this idea and although we were in a crowd of about 12 000 people, it really felt as if Elbow were playing for every single one of us personally. ‘We get together to listen to music but I think we also get together to be with people with common interests’, said Garvey.
Elbow’s 2-hour performance ended with a massive singalong on ‘One Day Like This’, the now anthemic song from their Mercury Prize winning album The Seldom Seen Kid. Saying the atmosphere was magical would be the very least. It was one of those concerts where everyone left with a smile on their face.
Thank you Elbow, we won’t forget this one either.
Elbow played :
– High Ideals
– The Bones Of You
– Grace Under Pressure
– Mirrorball
– Charge (new song)
– Leaders Of The Free World
– Grounds For Divorce
– The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver
– The Night Will Always Win
– Weather To Fly
– Fugitive Motel
– Puncture Repair
– Lippy Kids
– The Birds
– Open Arms
——————
– Starlings
– One Day Like This
Through the smoke rings of my mind 