Posts Tagged “elbow”

May 13 2008

Elbow, 2008-05-08 Bimbo’s 365 Club, San Francisco, CA

Posted by: dave in concert, tags: bimbo's 365 club, elbow, uk indie

Elbow is sometimes a difficult band to see. They write great songs, and Guy Garvey has a great voice, there’s no doubt. But, their songs are often slow ballads and not necessarily the stuff you can rock out with. This makes for a difficult live show I think, trying to keep the average crowd enthusiastic when for the most part if you give anyone a chance to hear themselves talk, they’ll take it as an opportunity to do so, even if the band is still on the stage and trying to perform. I was plagued at this particular show by a really coked up bunch of people who were trying really hard to be more impressive than the band. One guy couldn’t stop moving, maybe he wasn’t coked up and maybe he had Parkinson’s, I don’t know, but he couldn’t stop talking to everyone around him in such a distracting way that I personally found it really difficult to even concentrate on the band.
I personally like the long drawn out vocals and rather lush arrangement with the music. I don’t know what most people were expecting when they went to the show honestly. They did a lot of songs from their newest album, and a handful of older songs as well. It’s nothing I can complain about, but honestly it’s nothing that would have made me say “best concert ever”. The real highlight for me was One Day Like This where Guy got the crowd involved on the chorus. I guess I’m a sucker for that sort of thing, I don’t know. Good show, not great, but maybe it was the crowd and I was tired and this isn’t the sort of show for when you’re tired.