Elbow frontman Guy Garvey on making 'arena-worthy' songs ahead of huge Co-Op Live show
manchestereveningnews.co.uk“The last time we played in arenas, we didn’t really have many songs that were arena-worthy,” says Guy Garvey. Taken at face value, it’s a strange admission from the frontman of a band who have been filling UK arenas for nearly 15 years, but those who have followed Elbow’s trajectory since The Seldom Seen Kid catapulted them into the UK’s musical stratosphere will have an idea of where he’s coming from.
When they first headlined what is now the AO Arena, in September of 2009, they made a point of figuring out which block of seats up in the gods offered the worst view of the stage, and then headed up there to perform in front of it.
The catwalk that takes Garvey into the crowd - or “vanity thrust” as he’s often termed it - goes down into the audience, rather than over it, so that he’s among them, not above them.
He chats to the crowd with an everyman charm that makes it feel as if he’s holding court in the back room of The Castle on Oldham Street. READ MORE: 'A landmark moment for culture in Manchester, the north and the UK': Inside Aviva Studios - home of Factory International - as it opens after years in the making READ MORE: Oasis fans react to Liam Gallagher’s Definitely Maybe tour - and can’t help but notice one thing All of which is to say that Elbow are well-versed in breaking the arena mould to fit their songs, in shrinking the country’s cavernous hangars to better suit their often delicate sound.
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