Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 15/04/08

The ursine figure of Guy Garvey fills the Brixton Academy as much with his warm, genial personality as the sweeping, panoramic music that Elbow are producing. Equal parts frontman and amiable host - you can imagine him welcoming you into his parlour with arms open wide before examining the human condition over a glass or two of brandy and a cigar - Garvey's demeanour offers respite from the journeys that Elbow's music take their audience on.

Having already seduced the gathered faithful with an astonishing "Starlings" that is punctuated with blaring brass and the Iberian groove of "The Bones Of You", the singer finds himself offering a lightness of touch once more: "This next song is…this next song is good!" While he's not wrong, Guy Garvey is also being modest. So, with "Leaders Of The Free World" on particularly coruscating form since you ask, Elbow are a band with nothing but good songs and plenty of them.

And so it unfolds with a performance of mesmerising beauty. It matters not a jot that their set rests so heavily on their new album, "The Seldom Seen Kid", for the simple reason that it's their best collection to date. So while the likes of "Newborn" still hold the emotions with a vice-like grip and "Forget Myself" is greeted with 5,000 lusty voices, it's the newer material that truly compels.

"Grounds For Divorce" is driven by an inner strength as it recalls the precision and grind of a chain gang in the noonday sun while the poignancy of "The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver" is overwhelming. And yet, at these moments of overwrought passion, Garvey brings us back down to earth again with his disarming sense of humour. Ushering in "Mirrorball" he quips: "See if you can guess this next song by the way we light the stage." And so we're off again…

The Pennines are bridged as a slickly attired Richard Hawley takes the stage for "The Fix" but welcome though his presence is, nothing compares to the swelling mass of voices that carry "One Day Like This". Flying on the wings of hope and optimism, its chorus of "One day like this a year will see me right" not only invites participation but an acknowledgement that, once again, Garvey's hit the nail firmly on the head as it prepares for its new status as one of the festival anthems of the summer.

A triumphant performance throughout, there's enough evidence here to suggest that Elbow's next headline show in the UK capital will demand somewhere larger than south London's finest venue.

by Julian Marszalek