Elbow – Royal Festival Hall, London 16/06/08

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Elbow. Photograph by Dan Griffiths.

Across the river tonight, Coldplay are making their live comeback with a free show at Brixton Academy. On this side of the Thames, Elbow are playing to a sell-out crowd at Royal Festival Hall. It’s one of the biggest bands in the world versus the band they ripped off.

Unlike Coldplay, who will always be guaranteed a place on countless coffee tables no matter who they rip off, Elbow have a bit more to prove. There’s the critics, who, bar latest album Seldom Seen Kid, have been less than complimentary over the last 15 years. There’s the fans, those who have been there from the beginning, and those who bought Seldom Seen Kid on a ‘like-Coldplay-you’ll-love-this’ basis. There’s Massive Attack, this year’s Meltdown curators, who handpicked Elbow because they think they deserve it. Then there’s the band themselves. 2008 is looking decidedly like make or break for Elbow. They’ve moved record labels, had babies, and released their most critically acclaimed album to date. If it doesn’t come together this year, will it ever? When put like that, it’s a wonder the band make it on stage at all.

But of course they do, with frontman Guy Garvey looking dapper in a black shirt and black pork-pie hat for the occasion. Kicking off with a fairly unspectacular opener ‘Station Approach’, the evening kicks off, well, fairly unspectacularly. By about six songs in, it’s looking like Elbow are treating this as any other gig. Refusing to divulge any details about the show in recent interviews, it seems as if the audience has been teased by a rather prudish Elbow, who fail to deliver the goods. ‘Grounds for Divorce’ fills the huge auditorium, with guitar riffs sounding extra filthy, but it’s no different to the performance on their recent UK tour.

Just as it’s looking like Coldplay, with their matching uniforms and tribal drumming are pulling ahead, Elbow start playing the gig of their lives. It sounds as though a group of rather vocally talented men in the crowd are singing/chanting the chorus of ‘Any Day Now’, from Elbow’s debut, ‘Asleep In The Back’. Not quite though, as an entire male choir files on from stage left, and augment Elbow on every track for the rest of the evening. This is pulling it out of the bag. This is the show of their lives.

From here on in, the show is transformed, and not just by ‘Jeff’ the choir. ‘Starlings’ is given it’s live debut, with horn blasts coming from all band members, the soundman halfway back in the auditorium, and the two highest boxes on either side. It’s also a rare outing for ‘Presuming Ed (Rest Easy)’, because, in Garvey’s own words, ‘the band can’t do it by themselves’. A delicate, fragile song, ‘Presuming Ed’ could easily have been lost in a venue this size, or one infinitely smaller for that matter. However, with the subtle but strong presence of Jeff the choir, Garvey’s almost breaking vocals are lifted to new heights.

The cherry on Elbow’s cake is undoubtedly ‘Newborn’. Taken from their debut, ‘Asleep in the Back’, the album holds some truly magnificent tracks that the band have never topped. Beginning as an acoustic, gentle number, the audience (possibly those only familiar with recent work), use this as an opportunity to pop out for a drink, have a chat, and generally ignore the impending cacophony of a soundscape that’s coming their way. As the track hits the middle eight, keyboardist Craig Potter slips off stage, probably unnoticed by most. The band continue the lilting instrumental, as a small box at the back of the stage lights up. And it’s when ‘Newborn’ hits its huge, all-encompassing, sweeping crescendo that the audience start to take notice. The back of stage becomes illuminated, and we see Mr Potter plugging away at the organ, amidst it all. This is the show’s, and Elbow’s defining moment. Yes, they can write catchy riffs, politically charged songs, middle-of-the-road indie with the best of them. But can the best of them do this? Absolutely not. As the track concludes with its abrupt ending, there’s a stunned silence before the onslaught of the biggest applause of the night, and a spontaneous standing ovation from the entire room. ‘Is this rock?’ the person next to me asks? No sir, it certainly isn’t, and that’s perhaps why Elbow have never hit the mainstream – they’ve simply got too much depth for pigeon-holing.

Guy Garvey is also clearly blown away, and proceeds to completely miss the opening note on ‘Grace Under Pressure’, despite an introduction from the choir that manages to make the line ‘We still believe in love, so fuck you’ sound like a celestial chant. Second time lucky though, and the entire audience joins in with that should-be infamous line.

Finishing their triumphant set on current single and possibly the most uplifting song ever ‘One Day Like This’, all doubts are firmly quashed. Whether they make it this year or not, anyone in Royal Festival Hall will tell you that Elbow are truly a brilliant band, made up of talented, inventive, dedicated and determined musicians, who quite frankly deserve more than coffee table success anyway.