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Elbow
Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow
****
But that, of course, is all part of this Greater Manchester band's mass appeal. They're unassuming everymen with big romantic bear-hugging hearts. No wonder they're so successful. I get it.
In a world overstuffed with earnest peddlers of arena-sized 'anthems', Elbow are clearly so much better at This Sort of Thing than most of their peers. They mean it, man.
It helps that Garvey is a good lyricist who, broadly speaking, belongs to a lineage of working-class northern songwriters which also includes Morrissey and Jarvis Cocker (but not Noel Gallagher).
During the first of three sold-out nights at the Bandstand they were embellished by two backing singers and a three-woman brass section, who at one point performed a warm 'n' woozy snippet of Gershwin's Summertime.
The baroque strings which occasionally adorn their records were handled by the keyboards (Elbow are like a Tindersticks you could take home to meet your mother).
Their default setting is nocturnal rain-swept ballads - set highlights The Birds and Lippy Kids are quintessential Elbow - but they do 'rock' at times. Adriana At Last, with its surging, swirling chanted chorus, suggests they're familiar with the bonkers '70s concept album 666 by Greek prog-rockers Aphrodite's Child.
And Garvey - who also works as a BBC 6 Music presenter - is an avuncular pro who chats to the crowd like they're sat in his living room.
I particularly enjoyed his running gag about spotting someone in the crowd who looks exactly like his brother Marcus. That's the actor Marcus Garvey, not the legendary Jamaican political activist, just in case there was any doubt.
Elbow, then. They're good company.
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