STACK NZ March 2017 Issue 82

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When I interviewed Guy Garvey of
Britain's acclaimed Elbow in 2011 he
was amused by the fact he'd become
something of a rock star.
He was for too old for that description he
felt -- he was 37 and happily in a relationship
(“trying for baby”) at the time. Although I can't
remember if it was me or him who noted he
looked more like Ricky Gervais in The Office
than Ricky Martin.
But his group had started at the top of its
game a decade before (when he was of course
the more dangerously deadly rock'n'roll age
of 27) with Brit and Mercury awards for their
debut album Asleep in the Back .
The accolades just kept coming too – their
Seldom Seen Kid won the Mercury in 2008
and the following year they got the Brit for
best group – and they bounced right out of the
rock world into mainstream attention when
the BBC commissioned Garvey to write the
theme music for their 2012 London Olympics
coverage.
Elbow – stupid name, right? – performed that
song First Steps live at the closing ceremony.
Their 2014 album The Take Off and Landing
of Everything gave them their first UK number
one (it went to 4 in New Zealand, its better
predecessor Build a Rocket Boys! went to 5).
And although some of the band went their
own ways and Garvey released a solo album
Courting the Squall in 2015, they are back with
a new album Little Fictions... and Garvey's
literate writing and yearning vocals remain
intact on songs which swell on crests of
emotion (and are enhanced by the sound of the
Halle Orchestra and a choir).
If they are new to you then on a first listen
to this new album you may be
reminded of a more experimental
Blue Nile – if you remember them
– on the spare Gentle Storm,
and they come with a similar
Englishness as people like Ray
Davies and Jarvis Cocker. Needless
to say they remain a cult act in
America and aren't a band which
cracks hit singles. Not even back
home, oddly enough.
Yet Garvey can convey a sense
of universal world weariness while
also sounding vaguely optimistic.
It's a very appealing sound, and
their 2010 concert at Auckland's
Powerstation had all the
For more interviews, overviews and reviews
by Graham Reid see:
their 2010 concert at
Auckland's Powerstation
had all the components of
a tribal gathering
Graham Reid considers the career of
much hailed British band Elbow.
IT'S A GUY
THING
26 MARCH 2017
visit MUSIC FEATURE
components of a tribal gathering of the faithful
coupled with genuine rock energy and humour.
And for all that, Garvey is very much the
adult in the room. He has – because of his
tough Manchester upbringing perhaps – a
sympathy with the troubles of young people, as
on their song Lippy Kid.
Recently he also moved back to his home
city – Manchester Metropolitan University
gave him an honorary doctorate – and, after
splitting with that formerly loved-up partner, he
and actress Rachael Stirling (whose mum is
Avengers star Diana Rigg) married last year in
the Manchester Town Hall.
All of which adds up to Garvey being in
his happy place, and that spirit informs much
of Little Fictions without slipping it into overt
sentimentality.
He's also – and this is evident in the social
responsibility and good works of his life outside
Elbow – a man with a political conscience and
sense of innate discomfort, which on Little
Fictions seeps into the second verse of K2
(about the Brexit vote) and Trust the Sun which
despairs at the news cycle of violence and
retribution we encounter when we look at the
worst of the world around us.
So there is emotional breadth,
thoughtfulness, community, optimism, humour
(gentle, sly) and some superb singing (Garvey
can croon with the best) on Little Fictions.
It's an album which boasts the now-
expected sonic expansiveness (orchestration,
rock guitars, clattering percussion) from a band
which has taken its audience on a wonderful
ride for more than 15 years.
If Ray Davies of the Kinks can get, “Arise
Sir Ray” then – if Guy Garvey could just crack
those bloody important hit singles -- one
day from some currently ignorable Queen/
King/Prince/Whoever you might hear those
knighthood words: “Arise Sir Guy…”
On the back of the Elbow albums so far he's
honoured in my house at the opposite side of
the planet.