Elbow, Matt Corby @ The Enmore Theatre, Sydney (29/07/2011)
Filing into the Enmore Theatre a lot of excitable and eager music fans were itching to hear English band Elbow regale us with their dreamy Brit-pop. Coming on nice and early to warm the crowd up was Matt Corby. Those discerning enough may have recognised the name from a notorious reality TV show based talent quest. Regardless of his previous stints on aforementioned unnamed TV shows, this young performer quite literally blew the audience (what was in the room and paying attention) away.
He probably played about 4 songs at most, it was difficult to tell where some songs ended and new ones started as they all seemed to bleed into each other. This wasn’t in a detrimental way either, it’s obvious that there’s cohesion with his songs and that regardless of how varied the styles are within the songs they all manage to mesh together well.
There’s a definite indie folk influence similar to Mumford And Sons (who coincidentally Corby has supported and worked with whilst living in London) presiding over his music, with dashes of New Orleans Southern US style blues guitar sounds and taking a leaf out of the pages of such notable singer-songwriters before him such as Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake vocally. His voice rises and falls in the most peculiar way and his octave range was incredible, from barely audible whisperings through to almost lung bursting occasional falsettos. It’s obvious that this gent has put a lot of effort into honing his skills as an artist not just for his songwriting but his performing. Though admittedly his between song banter was a little shaky at best, I guess playing to a sold-out Enmore Theatre can rattle anybody.
Guy Garvey and his band of merry Elbow band mates weren’t so troubled by the size of the crowd and in fact encouraged the capacity room to join in the fun on numerous occasions. From occasional off key sing-a-longs, to putting our hands in the air and wiggling our fingers like jazz-hands, Garvey stalked the stage from left to right repeatedly making direct eye contact or waving specifically at members of the audience not just on the floor but up in the balcony.
They opened the evening with ‘The Birds’ and it sounded spectacular as the lights shone brightly on the band’s floor to ceiling backdrop nestled behind the two violinists who were joining the band onstage. ‘Neat Little Rows’ had us all clapping along to the thunderous bass provided by Pete Turner, whilst ‘Grounds For Divorce’ had the crowd roaring along. During an unusually quiet moment, Garvey told us a story of how during a particularly nasty post-break-up downturn in his life he relied upon drummer Richard Jupp to be a shoulder to cry on which led us into the ever so brief but gorgeous ‘Puncture Repair’. However even the more introspective soft songs like the stunning ‘Lippy Kids’ couldn’t hold the room back from joining in with a call and response style whistling session from both front man and audience.
At one point Garvey floated the idea of a sing-a-long to a ‘known’ song with a suggestion of ‘Hallelujah’ thrown up by an audience member and we all held our collective breaths at the mere thought of Garvey’s beautiful soaring vocals attempting the Leonard Cohen song. Alas our hopes were dashed, as the band returned for the encore to regale us with their trumpeting skills on ‘Starlings’ and as the band ended their performance on ‘One Day Like This’ we were all once again singing along ‘throw those curtains wide, one day like this a year’d see me right’.
For a band that is this year celebrating their 20th anniversary and 5th album release they are still a remarkably humble, modest and down to earth lot and even though their rise to popularity has been a steady one it is an extremely deserving one at that. Here’s hoping that perhaps another Mercury Prize is heading to their mantelpiece for the majestic work that is ‘Build A Rocket Boys!’.
Carina Nilma
He probably played about 4 songs at most, it was difficult to tell where some songs ended and new ones started as they all seemed to bleed into each other. This wasn’t in a detrimental way either, it’s obvious that there’s cohesion with his songs and that regardless of how varied the styles are within the songs they all manage to mesh together well.
There’s a definite indie folk influence similar to Mumford And Sons (who coincidentally Corby has supported and worked with whilst living in London) presiding over his music, with dashes of New Orleans Southern US style blues guitar sounds and taking a leaf out of the pages of such notable singer-songwriters before him such as Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake vocally. His voice rises and falls in the most peculiar way and his octave range was incredible, from barely audible whisperings through to almost lung bursting occasional falsettos. It’s obvious that this gent has put a lot of effort into honing his skills as an artist not just for his songwriting but his performing. Though admittedly his between song banter was a little shaky at best, I guess playing to a sold-out Enmore Theatre can rattle anybody.
Guy Garvey and his band of merry Elbow band mates weren’t so troubled by the size of the crowd and in fact encouraged the capacity room to join in the fun on numerous occasions. From occasional off key sing-a-longs, to putting our hands in the air and wiggling our fingers like jazz-hands, Garvey stalked the stage from left to right repeatedly making direct eye contact or waving specifically at members of the audience not just on the floor but up in the balcony.
They opened the evening with ‘The Birds’ and it sounded spectacular as the lights shone brightly on the band’s floor to ceiling backdrop nestled behind the two violinists who were joining the band onstage. ‘Neat Little Rows’ had us all clapping along to the thunderous bass provided by Pete Turner, whilst ‘Grounds For Divorce’ had the crowd roaring along. During an unusually quiet moment, Garvey told us a story of how during a particularly nasty post-break-up downturn in his life he relied upon drummer Richard Jupp to be a shoulder to cry on which led us into the ever so brief but gorgeous ‘Puncture Repair’. However even the more introspective soft songs like the stunning ‘Lippy Kids’ couldn’t hold the room back from joining in with a call and response style whistling session from both front man and audience.
At one point Garvey floated the idea of a sing-a-long to a ‘known’ song with a suggestion of ‘Hallelujah’ thrown up by an audience member and we all held our collective breaths at the mere thought of Garvey’s beautiful soaring vocals attempting the Leonard Cohen song. Alas our hopes were dashed, as the band returned for the encore to regale us with their trumpeting skills on ‘Starlings’ and as the band ended their performance on ‘One Day Like This’ we were all once again singing along ‘throw those curtains wide, one day like this a year’d see me right’.
For a band that is this year celebrating their 20th anniversary and 5th album release they are still a remarkably humble, modest and down to earth lot and even though their rise to popularity has been a steady one it is an extremely deserving one at that. Here’s hoping that perhaps another Mercury Prize is heading to their mantelpiece for the majestic work that is ‘Build A Rocket Boys!’.
Carina Nilma