Grounds For Divorce: Elbow @ 9:30 Club
A lot has changed for Guy Garvey and Elbow since I spoke to him in April of last year, ahead of their gig at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue. Their album The Seldom Seen Kid has been an unqualified success, selling in large quantities and raising the band's profile to a new level. Awards soon followed: the group won the UK's prestigious 2008 Mercury Music Prize, Best British Group at the 2009 Brit Awards and picked up a few Ivor Novello Awards along the way. Oh, and let's not forget the opening slots for Coldplay and U2. The show at Sixth and I was one of the best I saw in 2008, so expectations (and ticket counts) were higher for last night's show at the 9:30 Club. I ran into a friend on the street on the way to the club and told him I hoped this show would be grittier and rock harder, since the band were playing a proper rock club this time around, but sadly this was not to be.
Taking the stage promptly at 9:30 to an enthusiastic, bordering on rapturous crowd, Elbow played "Starlings," Kid's opening track and their standard set opener, and followed with the mid-tempo "The Bones of You" before slowing things down with "Mirrorball." Thus the tone of the night was set, with the band weighing their set down with their slower, more ethereal tunes, like "The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver," "The Stops," and "Switching Off," and only occasionally giving the audience some release with more uptempo work like "Grounds For Divorce" and "Newborn."
In fact it wasn't until the latter song that we finally got a moment truly worth remembering during the show. "Newborn," one of the band's first singles, showcases all of Elbow's strengths; Garvey's husky voice, guitarist Mark Potter's slinky riffs and the rest of the band's jammy/prog tendencies. That song is rarely anything but a straight up show-stopper and it certainly reached those heights last night. "Weather To Fly" followed, and it proved to be the only song that night that was reworked in any way from the recorded version. The band started the song unplugged, huddled at the back of the stage, performing facing each other. A quick break for a round of Jaeger shots (seriously) and they all took their regular places on the stage, finishing with a beefed up coda that featured some muscular drums. The set needed more deviation like this. It was hard to appreciate the intricacies of the slower material without anything to give it contrast.
Setlist and pacing nitpicks aside, Garvey remains one of the most engaging front men in music, constantly chatting with fans and using his jovial persona to create an intimate atmosphere inside the club. He introduced "Leaders" by saying this song was "for the new boss of your country. And ours, too." He also told a story about the first time the band played the 9:30 Club, when he lost his voice during an airing of "Newborn." He described his feeling of helplessness when it happened, thinking of all the people relying on him to stay on tour and sing his songs, and how he recruited an audience member name Elaine to come on stage and sing the song, which she did with flying colors. "She saved our bacon," he recalled, joking that because of her they didn't have to give any refunds that night.
It's hard to fault Elbow for playing the material that took their career to the next level. It may not be the most exciting material to hear live, but people are obviously reacting to it. If you listened closely during the gig last night at the requests being shouted from the audience, they were entirely for old songs like "Bitten By The Tailfly," "Powder Blue," and "Fugitive Motel." Maybe next time around, the group come up with a set that will strike a balance between pleasing both their diehard fans and those only familiar with their newer material.