Elbow
Paradise Rock Club
Boston, MA
Wednesday November 1, 2017

Support: C Duncan

Elbow has been a band that I’ve grown to appreciate more and more.  Wednesday was the third time I’ve seen the band live and the 2^nd time after I vowed to “never miss them again”.

Arriving to the club (sold out) C Duncan was on stage.  One guy with what appeared to be a keyboard/laptop type set up.  He was on his 2^nd to last song and what I heard didn’t overly move me, but he got a good response from the audience.

My buddy and I settled upstairs.  The Paradise has a lot of history and one of the things its known for is the massive poles that are in the WORST places for sight lines.  A few years ago the club did some renovations and put in an small balcony area and moved the board up there.  Well, for whatever reason Elbow put their gear on the main floor.  They had big “staging” areas too for guitars/bass and a LOT of floor space was unused.  Sold out shows at the Paradise are a drag..there I said it.

Thankfully Elbow helped me quickly forget all that.

Opening with “Any Day Now” which is the first track of the bands 2001 debut album.  It was a dark and moody (and perfect) take on the track.  You could almost hear people audibly gasp that they were playing the tune.  They kept it “old” by then going in to “The Bones of You” from the 2008 release “The Seldom Seen Kid”  we then got “Fly Boy Blue” and finally the first track from the newest record (Little Fictions) in “Head for Supplies”

“My Sad Captains” brought a (continuous) sing along with the wonderful line “What a perfect waste of time”.  Frontman Guy Garvey is just such a great front man.  He didn’t run around the stage, but he made good use of it.  His stories in between just about every song were more charming than annoying.  You actually looked forward to the story about how as song was put together, or why etc.

The whole show was just a series of highlights, further confirming their “must not miss” status.  “The Birds” as a buddy noted is a track that “I could listen to for 2 hours” and “Little Fictions” with its Radiohead-esque final few minutes just pull you right in.

Of course a big payoff song is “One Day Like This”.  This track ended the main set and will forever be a set closer for the band, it is just so perfect.  Garvey got the audience to “hum” early on.  The floor hummed in one key, then upstairs another key.  Then the song began so when the sing along came up Garvey commanded working “harmonies”.  I know that singing at shows can be seen in various ways, but this just HAS to happen when this song goes down.  Honestly one of those tracks where I wish I could transport the most cynical music fan just to experience.  It is just a perfect few minutes.

The band left the stage and came back for three more tracks.  “Grounds for Divorce” was another track that whipped everyone in to a frenzy and the night was ended with that.

The full set list:
Any Day Now
The Bones of You
Fly Boy Blue/Lunette
Head for Supplies
My Said Captains
Leaders of the Free World
Switching Off
All Disco
Magnificent (She Says)
Mirrorball
The Birds
Little Fictions
Kindling
One Day Like This
E:
Station Approach
Lippy Kids
Grounds for Divorce

The band doesn’t seem to tour the US very much (at least in my opinion) so catch them when you can.  I know I won’t miss em if they are local.