Elbow live

Elbow
Double Door, Chicago
Sunday, April 16, 2006

In a slightly muted performance on Easter night, Elbow frontman Guy Garvey proved not to be kidding when he said they brought the weather with them. Countering the chugging momentum of their third album, Leaders Of The Free World (V2), Elbow’s delayed return to Chicago felt a record behind.

Listening to Elbow’s albums back-to-back-to-back gives one the sensation of coming out of a coma in slow motion. Asleep In The Back chronicled the band’s provincial upbringing of a lifetime spent in and around gloomy Manchester. Its successor, Cast Of Thousands, was a bit more brisk (relatively, course) but staked its more powerful moments in weighted love letters back home. Released last fall elsewhere and this spring in the States, Leaders bends their rules for some quirkier arrangements, but when they lean back to relax it comes off as a weary Peter Gabriel fronting Doves.

It was the Cast Of Thousands portion that defined Sunday’s show, even if it didn’t dominate it. Ultra-dramatic renderings of “Switching Off” and “Fugitive Motel” swayed like skyscrapers in torrents of wind, reaching the crowd more effectively than low-volume “rockers” like “Forget Myself,” “Station Approach,” and the new album’s title track.

The off-meter “Puncture Repair” was a charming tangent as was watching Garvey pound an extra set of drums during non-album “McGreggor,” but aside from “Mexican Standoff” and some rolling tumbleweeds, the most gripping new song was “Great Expectations,” which would fit Cast Of Thousands. Grasping at the air with the mic clenched in his left hand, Garvey’s howl was noticeably less hoarse as he bellowed “You were the sun in my Sunday morning.” That it was raining so heavily outside didn’t seem coincidental after all.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly