By: David de Young
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| Elbow - publicity photo from their MySpace |
Despite Guy Garvey having majorly distracting trouble with his monitor during the opening song, it all got sorted out soon enough, and regardless, his voice still sounded great and perfectly on key in the mains.
Side note: I just lost two hours of writing time as I got so sucked into Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour radio show on BBC Radio 6. The Finest Hour is just so good – a mix of diverse, great music I’ve heard before and wanted to hear again and great songs I’d never even heard. The irony is not lost on me that Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour is actually two hours long.
Song two of the set was also the second song off The Seldom Seen Kid (hereafter, TSSK). It was a favorite of many at Wednesday’s show, including local songstress Apryl Electra, and struck such a chord with an exuberant fan in the front row that he shouted “Play that again” as soon as it was through. In the dialogue with Garvey that ensued, the fan claimed to have apparently “lost his nuts” over the song. Garvey was, in fact, quite chatty throughout the whole show, frequently stopping to ask, “Is Everyone okay?” and ensuring that both the main floor and the fans in the balcony remained engaged.
Garvey jokingly introduced “Leaders of the Freeworld” saying “This is a song about the leader of your country and the leader of our country and a comment on what a great job they’re doing.” About this time, some devoted fans had a tray full of shots delivered to the stage – there was no question this audience loved the band, and they were doing everything they could to show it.
Next up was “Great Expectations” which Garvey introduced as being a song about an imaginary marriage that took place (during a train ride?) between Manchester and Bury (Elbow’s hometown) so secret the bride never even new about it. Simply put, it was damned pretty and made me realize (again) that Elbow are absolute masters of the sensitive Brit pop ballad. They have a way of presenting songs that are heavy in the rock and roll sense while still lovely as hell at the same time; their ability to balance the two so exquisitely is but one thing which sets them aside from many bands.
Garvey remarked on the good vibe at The Fine Line and that it was Elbow’s favorite sized venue – the Fine Line holds about 750 people. The band then returned to another favorite track off the new disc, this time “Mirrorball” as the disco ball above the stage appropriately lit up and started to turn in response. The music to the song itself has the feel of a ballad coming on towards the end of the night in a club and being gently showered spinning lights.
It was reiterated that the day before had been guitarist Mark Potter’s birthday. (Potter had joked on the April 27th BBC Radio show that it was his 25th again!) “Station Approach” was the next song. Garvey said it was about returning home and could be applied to any city in the world.
“Grounds for Divorce,” the album’s first single and the working title song (as it contains the lyric “someday we’ll be drinking with the seldom seen kid” found Garvey dancing and beating on a piece of metal with a drumstick. Before “The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver” Garvey gave a shout out to Richard Hawley. “Tower Crane Driver” includes a really cool guitar riff by Potter. Potter pulled out the acoustic guitar again for the Beatlesque “The Stops,” which also features half steps and was a little evocative of Nick Drake. They rocked with a sing-a-long rendition of “Newborn” from asleep in the Back. (It’s still in the running for first best line of a song ever – “I’ll be your corpse in the bathtub, useless.”) Then they closed the set proper with what is to be the new single, "One Day Like This." (Check out the cool new video for that song here.)
On this tour Elbow’s been doing a different thing with the encore, encouraging fans to sing a song together instead of just cheering to get them back out on stage. The band’s sound engineer (Danny) is recording these audience songs, and the best ones are being played back on the radio show – one that made the cut on the show was a spontaneous rendition of “We all live in Pete Turner’s hair” to the tune of “Yellow Submarine.” Among other suggestions on this night in Minneapolis was Steve Engelmeyer (of therocknrollstar.blogspot.com) fittingly suggesting “Purple Rain.” It beat out “Lean on Me” by just a hair. When the band descended briefly to the basement green room, Engelmeyer took to the stage and attempted to lead a befuddled crowd in the Prince classic only to immediately be escorted back off by the stage manager. All I can say is, good effort Steve.
Elbow re-emerged anyway for a three-song encore that ended with “Grace Under Pressure” from Cast of Thousands, which found Garvey stepping down into the audience to sway with the fans as we all gave a shot at singing the last bit “We still believe in love, so fuck you.” (This reviewer did the same at Glastonbury, 2002, incidentally, earning a credit on the album for backing vocals. I kid you not. )
Location Info:
Fine Line Music Café
Artist Info: Elbow
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