Elbow landed in London for the latest leg of their tour and gave the crowd something to remember.
It would always be touch and go, riding on the wave of their Mercury win, but since then, there have been other Mercury winners and music has evolved.
Their latest record ‘Build A Rocket Boys’ had only been out a couple of weeks so would the working class boys from Manchester win over a largely middle class crowd in London?
They opened with a plethora of tracks from the latest album including ‘The Birds’ and ‘Neat Little Rows’
It was clear as soon as ‘With Love’ was emblazoned on the audience that the new album would fit in seamlessly with the rest of their back catalogue.
Guy Garvey’s witty interludes kept the crowd entertained in between tracks although a few would-be comedians tried to ruin them. Garvey smoothed over the cracks before launching into ‘Grounds For Divorce’.
An acoustic version of ‘Weather To Fly’ was an enourmous crowd pleaser, especially after the band chugged down cocktails on a makeshift piano-cum-bar.
A 3 song encore concluded with ‘One Day Like This’ and by now success was theirs. They even had a standing ovation from people in the stands, which doesn’t happen a lot at The O2.
Next time they tour should be even easier because ‘Build A Rocket Boy’s will be supported by a string of singles so let’s look forward to their summer tour.
With Love.
