Elbow live at Manchester Cathedral - Oct 27 2011

They performed "Dear Friends" live with the Halle.

My life is complete!

Beautiful stuff as always. Listened on Radio 2 and then 6 Music.

Oh poo, didn't see this till too late - what else did I miss on Radio 6?

Radio 6 only did three of the encore songs -- "Some Riot," "Tower Crane," and "Dear Friends." Then they apparently went on for another half hour, and just finished with "Scattered Blacks & Whites."

Oh I bet that was stunning!!!

Just as well I didn't hear it live, wouldn't do to be sobbing into my keyboard on my third week in the job....

The internet is a wonderful thing, so hopefully recordings will make their way out to us at some point soon.....

hilaryg wrote:

for those watching on the red button, who was the female singer on The Birds? Stella, Joti, Margi?

It was the lovely Stella.

Excellent set, though infuriated at the listlessness of the crowd.
For information, the repeat of the TV broadcast is on tomorrow at 6.00pm on the BBC red button (Freeview channel 301). It's on for two hours, so I'm guessing it will be the entire show, rather than a highlights package.

Dear Friends was beautiful, I was crying my eyes out. I would've liked Guy on acoustic and Mark on electronic as it just enhances the song that extra bit more but I can't complain as they had the choir and made it all the more mesmeric.

So happy they played Starlings and Scattered Black and Whites too.

BBC stuff is still not available in my area.

Hooray for youtube!

Watching the encore now. Some Riot, mesmerizing...

The audience is indeed a bit... I don't know... sober?

Mr Woman wrote:

Excellent set, though infuriated at the listlessness of the crowd.
For information, the repeat of the TV broadcast is on tomorrow at 6.00pm on the BBC red button (Freeview channel 301). It's on for two hours, so I'm guessing it will be the entire show, rather than a highlights package.

Thanks MT

Loved hearing Dear Friends, and Lippy Kids with the choir got me all teary. *wibble*

Despite the crowd the lads looked like they were having a good time.

Don't know what to say about last night (though I tweeted plenty)...

Venue - majestic, setlist - slight improvement (SB&W, Dear Friends & The Stops which wasn't shown on the red button at the time), band - very good as per usual.

Now the bits that grated.....Guy's over the top 'crowd interaction' at the start, got right on my nerves, thankfully it didn't last, however, the silence coming from Exchange Square bit was funny.

The crowd were absolutely terrible and and an embarrassment to Manchester, barely any signs of people outwardly enjoying themselves, and as I've said previously on these boards, wouldn't expect everyone to be as fuelled up as me, but they were like corpses/statues/zombies, delete as appropriate.

Yeah, I wished I could have been there - but I'm sure if some of us mob could have attended there would have been a crowd who looked like they were grateful to be there/knew the bloody songs !

Got to agree with MBV on the audience being noticeably 'restrained'. Guessing it was the combination of family, friends, random mix of ticket winners (obviously not all rampant rockin' out types...), plus unappreciative meeja liggers who apparently buggered off early: http://totallycranked.tumblr.com/

Anyway, if you can't wait to see it again on your telly's Red Button, the vid's on iplayer now here until Thurs 3rd Nov with the R2 audio here.

It'll be turning up in the Scattered FLAC section soon.

LongLegs wrote:

Mr Woman wrote:

Excellent set, though infuriated at the listlessness of the crowd.
For information, the repeat of the TV broadcast is on tomorrow at 6.00pm on the BBC red button (Freeview channel 301). It's on for two hours, so I'm guessing it will be the entire show, rather than a highlights package.

Thanks MT

In the words of Shaggy...wasn't me.

Hello all.
I was lucky enough to be there last night (big fat ginger head at the front on the right). It was a wonderful night and I have to come out in defence of the crowd.

Admittedly it was a bit subdued for the support band 'Slow Show' (who were great) but most of us had been stood outside in torrential rain for 3 hours to make sure we got in (the BBC issued more tickets than there were places in case of no shows). As a result we were all still drying off.

When the band came on the reception was fantastic and from there on in it was the same warm and enthusiastic atnosphere that i have always experienced. I'm pretty sure it was just a question of the
TV not doing the crowd justice.

Well, what can I say. I pulled off the blag of the century to get into the gig last night. Just as things were looking very bleak indeed a fellow forum member, Len, pulled off a master stroke and before I could blink I was in the Cathedral. Don't want to say too much about how I got in as I'd hate to get anybody into trouble.

The crowd did seem a bit subdued and as others have already stated, that's what you get when the majority of the people there are friends, family, record company staff and the cast of Coronation Street!!! I witnessed a certain Corrie actor, who shall remain nameless, turn up with 6 or 8 guests, none of whom appeared to have tickets. Two minutes later they were all admitted to the venue. This made me mad and even more determined to get in. I heard one of the security staff say that they were well over on numbers as people had been bringing more guests than they should've done!

Anyway, there's not much point in describing the performance as it's available in several places for people to see and judge for themselves. I had a great evening. Jupp & Craig were both very chatty. Didn't get chance to talk to Pete or Mark and Guy was nowhere to be seen. Had a good chat with Jimi from Doves and Rufus Hound. Both top blokes.

I believe the term 'Doing A Cestrian' is to be included in the next edition of the OED. Maybe that's a cue to call it a day? I've done more than my fair share of blags recently. Perhaps it's time I passed to baton on to somebody else. ;-)

just caught up with some of this now, after a busy week at new job.
generally i can never get enuff of this stuff - only, i'm starting to get a little (just a little!)
bit, kind of, umm, well, cough, hmmmm, dare i say bored.

I think its probably just the amount of exposure / number of times they've been on this year.
In fact, i probably got the same way for a while after endless TSSK plaudits the other year.

Don't get me wrong i still love them, but you can have too much of a good thing too ;-)

I know where you're coming from ChrissyBoy.

Personally, I've avoided a lot of footage this year. It made New York all the more fun.

But this one is, I think, the band's "special" gig of this year...so I'm looking forward to watching it soon

Another great performance......have to say tho, Guys interludes of extended banter can go on a bit. I'd prefer to hear Great Expectations and Switching Off instead............!

Next Album please fellas......you are a truly unique band.

Some interesting comments. I'd like to see the set changed now. As much as I love Tower Crane driver I have to say I'd rather them play something from the fisrt two albums as that material seems to have been neglected of late. I adore Newborn and can't believe they've not been playing it lately. Powder Blue, Red, Switching Off or Fugitive Motel would all be great. I'd also like to hear Neat Little Rows replaced by Mexican Standoff or Forget Myself. It would be amazing to hear Not A Job or Asleep In The Back given an outing again.

Steve, did they play 'The Stops', which I was led to believe or any other oldies (apart from SB&W) ?

No, they didn't play The Stops.

The only oldies were Station Approach and Scattered Black & Whites.

Just for info, I found the full setlist online...

R2 Broadcast:

1. The Birds
2. Mirrorball
3. Grounds For Divorce
4. The Night Will Always Win
5. Lippy Kids
6. Weather To Fly
7. Open Arms
8. One Day Like This

6 Music Encore:

9. Some Riot
10. The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver
11. Dear Friends

"Off Air" Encore:

12. Starlings
13. Station Approach
14. Scattered Black And Whites

It's always nice to hear one or two older ones and I'd like to hear them do justice to the first three albums a little more. Poor old Cast Of Thousands, left standing on it's own in the corner again like Billy No-Mates.

CoT does tend to get ignored more than any other album. Admittedly, I never have got the fuss with Grace Under Pressure, but there is so much gold still there. "Switching Off" is definitely in my top 5 of all time; Ribcage is one of their most fascinating and original tracks and that's before you get to the gorgeous Fugitive Motel and the brilliant Not a Job. Really like "Flying Dream" too, for what it is - more of an interesting musical dénouement, or perhaps encore, than anything; I don't really judge it as a full song given its style and brevity.

I think as an album it may well be their weakest, but it's a wonderful piece of work nonetheless- how many bands can say that about albums floating in the middle of their back catalogue quality-wise, let alone the bottom?

No. No more 'The Stops'.
And as far as I know they will never play 'Leaders' again.
Nor 'Newborn'.
We can only hope they may change their minds sometime.
I'm personally looking forward to some new stuff. Onwards and upwards!!!

By and large, I don't have a problem with the band playing newer material. They have an album to promote, after all. It's the newer material that will be more readily available in shops. It's the newer material that a casual audience will be more familiar with.

It makes sense why "The Stops" is out of the live rotation -- there comes a point where you just have to stop talking about your ex, y'know.

"Leaders"' moment has passed; it's an anti-Bush/anti-Blair song, and neither are in power any longer.

I was disappointed that I didn't hear "Newborn" when the band played DC back in September; they have a history with that song at that venue. (Guy lost his voice when they first played the 9:30 Club, and a fan jumped on stage and did the vocals.) But I wasn't bothered by its absence; "Scattered" not being played bugged me a little more.

I'm also not bothered by the absence of Cast of Thousands tracks. They brought out "Switching Off" for the St. Paul's Cathedral concert, so it's not totally been forgotten by the band.