The Elbow Salt Lake City show at the Union Events Center this month marked the Brits’ return to Utah after an absence of 17 years. Holy cats, how could it have been so long. The band played from 2024’s well received Audio Vertigo, one of my favorite records of 2024. They also played from this year’s follow-up EP, Audio Vertigo Echo, and from their Mercury Music prize-winning The Seldom Seen Kid and songs from four other albums.
When last we saw ye Elbow
I may be losing my edge to the kids in France and London. But I was there. Not at the first Can show in Cologne, but at Elbow’s wild 2008 performance at Salt Lake City’s The Depot.
It was wild for a couple of reasons. First, because The Depot was still a relatively new venue, and virtually empty for Elbow’s show. Maybe 100 people. Second because of the performance itself. I can still see Guy Garvey putting in and removing his earplugs for every shattering trumpet hit on show opener and Seldom Seen Kid lead track “Starlings.” That, and the not-yet-mythical “One Day Like This” were highlights.
Cutaway to the Elbow Salt Lake City show in 2025
I’m not exactly a completionist with Elbow but I have a lot of their records. Almost all. And there were still a couple of songs on October 10 that I hadn’t heard. That was pretty cool!
By a bit of bad luck I managed to walk into the performance a few songs late. From the little boys room after first arriving, I could hear Garvey singing from “The Bones of You,”
And it’s you, and it’s May
And we’re sleeping through the day
And it’s five years ago
And three thousand miles away
Thankfully I was back for the lion’s share of my favorites from The Seldom Seen Kid, The Take Off and Landing of Everything, Build a Rocket Boys! and Leaders of the Free World. Here’s what I saw and heard.
Elbow Salt Lake City performance, Guy Garvey and their musical troupe
Elbow’s five members are traveling with an added four or five musicians (!) which is a pretty intense investment. The supplemental players added clarinet, trumpet, saxophone, violin and I believe trombone. (Bad note-taking by me). The resulting arrangments were lush and fairly complete reflections of Elbow’s symphonic moments and the funkier elements of Audio Vertigo.
And let’s just say this: Garvey’s voice is just unmatched. To have that kind of texture and range at this stage in his career is extraordinary.
Garvey did at times lean into the audience participation a bit too much. Frequently he demonstrated for the audience how to sway their arms back and forth in rhythm to the song. Yes, like it was “Purple Rain” in 1983. Other times he was coaching fans on the part of the refrain he wanted them to sing; or how long he wanted the audience to serenade the band in order for (wink) Elbow to return for an encore.
For me, it emphasized the Dad Rock moment of it all, as if I needed reminding by the older crowd on hand. Too much of that becomes shtick.
Elbow highlights, and there were many
Like it was 2008 again, the first song in Elbow’s encore, “Station Approach,” was just thunderous. And maybe that is my bias, because I was introduced to Elbow on Leaders of the Free World. Every song on that album has special meaning for me. But it also just rocked.
The standout of the night–by not a little–was “The Birds,” from Build a Rocket Boys! Peformed live, it turned into the kind of mini-epic that was a signature of Elbow’s early discography. When the band introduced the lithe synthesizer at 3:30 that graduates the back half of the song to arena anthem, the Union Hall went berzerk. “The Birds” is also one of the Elbow songs that shows off the band’s trademark arrangement: Layering the chorus and background vocals over each other in a climactic reveal. (See also: “One Day Like This” and the delirious “Periscope Up!” near the end of “Leaders of the Free World.”)
Garvey was also sweetly gracious to the audience, and to the band. He asked if anyone remembered the last time Elbow was in Utah. Garvey repeatedly involved balcony fans on the left and right. He indulged a musician in the audience named Ryan with a long back-and-forth that continued into the next song. And after the now-requisite finale of “One Day Like This,” Garvey brought the band and touring musicians to the front of a stage for a collective bow like a Broadway cast musical. The parting bow felt genuine and earned.
Please, Elbow, don’t wait another 17 years to come back again!
