"I've got a few words for the journalists to print", growls Guy Garvey, inspiring an echo of boos at the mere mention of a vocation seemingly as contemptible as a paedophilic politician. "We're as good as The White Stripes", Garvey advises the crowd, as he eyes the pen-toting vermin before him, including your now rather furrowed correspondent.
Like The White Stripes, Elbow endured an arduous and covert - from the public, certainly - apprenticeship. However, unlike the stylised, cartoon-colourful and immediately seductive Jack and Meg, the Bury five-piece lay cards of an enduringly dark suit and will not be riding with Renee Zellweger thank you very much.
Equally, Jack White wouldn't be seen dead in Garvey's outfit tonight. He's resplendent in a dinner jacket, sweating like a doomed Tony Blair under the armpit of King's Cross, but seemingly on his way to The Ivy. No food is served this evening though. Rather, Elbow feverishly devour the Scala with six new tracks boasting the kind of black, doom-laden appetite on which their reputation is founded.
About to return with 'Cast Of Thousands', the follow-up to their way to blue breakthrough, 'Asleep In The Back', Elbow have changed little, but there are telling signs of evolution, notably in the widescreen scope of the sound. Grinding opening track 'Ribcage' releases a cloudburst of vocal doves with the stage-left gospel choir, whilst the bulging 'Fallen Angel', like a bridge between Blur's 'Sing' and Coldplay's 'Politik', correctly advises us to "keep your blues on cruise control".
'Snooks' is built on a creaking groove whose loping presence is battered into space by a jarring blast of venomous guitar, here recreated in part by Garvey's more palatable vocal howl. The draining romance of 'Fugitive Motel' - "I blow you a kiss, it should reach you tomorrow. It flies from the other side of the world" - is entwined in John Barry-esque swathes of strings, drawing a palpable sigh from a crowd bearing the weight of this heaviness for the first time. Not that they'd be stupid enough to come without their reinforced hearts, of course. Elbow are not for those who dismiss such turbulence as "depressing".
Of the other new material, 'Switching Off' is more closely allied to the dulcet torture and release minted by the likes of 'Scattered Black And Whites', as Garvey drops his guard time and again amid the streaming melancholic strife. However, a colossal 'Grace Under Pressure' becomes the evening's defining moment, the almost Garage percussive crash aligned with dense orchestration and backing vocals. Though lacking the immense live crowd which accompanies the recorded version on the closing mantra - "we still believe in love, so f*ck you" - this is a towering, imposing sound.
Elsewhere, 'Red', 'Bitten By The Tailfly' and 'Coming Second' require little explanation, while closer 'Newborn' is - as ever - as sonically crushing as a Jumbo Jet starting its engines through a tube running directly into your skull.
Elbow, then. A match for The White Stripes, though clearly rocking a different planet. Unless, say, it suddenly emerged that Jack and Meg are not brother and sister, but actually an estranged couple desperately and furtively grappling with the crash of their tumultuous love. Oh, hang on...
