Gig review: Elbow at First Direct Arena, Leeds

As he walks onstage with his four bandmates at Leeds’s First Direct Arena, Elbow singer Guy Garvey punches the air with his right fist. Such an act might on the face of it seem triumphalist before a note has even been played; however, it’s soon apparent that the 50-year-old is more than a little excited at being back in this corner of West Yorkshire.

Minutes later he recounts a backstage conversation with one of their production team: “We were saying that outside of Manchester, this is the venue that feels most like home to us. She said, ‘You should tell them that, they will f***ing love it.’” The loud cheer that ensues shows the feeling is very much mutual.

Augmented by a three-piece brass section and three backing singers, two of whom also play violin, Elbow’s sound and simple yet effective light show are very much geared up to their spacious surroundings.

They have the songs too, with opening numbers Things I’ve Been Telling Myself For Years and Lovers’ Leap, from their recent number one album Audio Vertigo, a hefty double whammy.

“Let’s twinkle,” says Garvey, fluttering his fingers as the arena is bathed in disco lights for Mirrorball; before Charge he explains that the song was written after an encounter with a man in a whisky bar in Chicago where he’d gone to brood after splitting with his then girlfriend. Lines such as “I’ve broken jaws protecting laws” suggest that conversation with his new drinking buddy was lively.

Fly Boy Blue/Lunette makes good use of trumpet, saxophone and trombone; Jesca Hoop, the American-born, now Manchester-based singer-songwriter who is among their backing singers tonight, provides a soaring vocal during Dexter & Sinister. The bouncy Balu celebrates “lots of big, brainy, hairy, hedonistic friends” of Garvey’s “living and dead”.

A majestic rendition of The Birds is followed by Puncture Repair’s tale of lasting friendship, sweetly delivered by Garvey to keyboard player Craig Potter. In Kindling his rich lyricism is in full flow: “Then my telephone shakes into life and I see your name/And the wheat fields explode into gold either side of the train.”

Another new number, Good Blood Mexico City, doesn’t seem out of place alongside such long standing audience favourites Station Approach and My Sad Captains, while Magnificent (She Says) is all wide-eyed wonder and they finish with a flourish with the stompy Grounds For Divorce, amid which Mark Potter’s guitar riff roars.

They encore with Lippy Kids and the inevitable One Day Like This, during which the entire audience seems to be singing along.

A quite stunning evening, enhanced by a sterling set from support act The Waeve, Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall’s prog-folk group with whom Elbow seem delighted to be touring.