Sheffield - 3 March

HI all

I was at the Academy in Sheffield for the gig tonight - and was as brilliant as expected. Got there in time to catch the last 10 minutes or so of The Acorn, who sounded excellent, so I was kicking myself a bit that I didn't get there a bit earlier. No worries though, shall investigate their CD a bit more.

Elbow came onstage about 9ish and played right through to 11pm. Starlings made a fantastic opener, with Guy contributing trumpet. Then it was straight into The Bones Of You, followed by Mirrorball (with some lasers firing off the venue's very own mirrorball).

I can't remember the full set-list, but it seems pretty similar to the other dates on the tour that have posted already. We did get The Fix though, for which the band were joined onstage by Sheffield's own Richard Hawley, receiving a predictably raptorous welcome from his home crowd. Sadly, they didn't play Great Expectations (my favourite Elbow song) but that was more than made up for a beautiful Switching Off.

Other highlights included Guy battering the living daylights out of a standing drum during Grounds For Divorce, and a celebratory One Day Like This. And if that wasn't enough, there was also a fine encore of Slow Riot, Station Approach and a gorgeous Scattered Black & Whites. Personally, I'd have liked to have heard a few more from the first 2 albums (just Newborn from AATB and Switching Off from COT).

The Academy isn't my favourite venue in Sheffield - it stood derelict for over a decade before the Academy Group took it over, and it could really do with a massive refurbishment. The floor is horribly sticky, and it needs a decent lick of paint. However, capacity-wise, it's just the venue that Sheffield needs. The Plug and The Leadmill are superior venues, but there's no way we'd get a band like Elbow in there nowadays.

One final thing - I was impressed at the atmosphere tonight. I was a bit wary about tonight's gig - I stupidly thought that, after the Brits and the Mercury, the gig may attract the casual fan who just turns up for a big singalong to One Day Like This and talks all the way through the rest of the songs. Not the case though, with a classic like Newborn being greeted with just as much warmth as the rest of the material.

Thanks for a great gig, guys.

Thanks for sharing with us - and staying up so late to do so!

Nice report. I'm jealous that you got Richard.

theres always a chance in sheffield that hawley will be wandering past with his guitar!!

have seen the band grow over the last 8 years and they go from strength to strength. last night they captivated sheffield, like the original poster i wondered how many would have jumped on the bandwagon after the mercury etc but it seems the back catalogue was as popular as the award winning stuff..

Im glad we've got the academy, since its opened its been a valuable addition to the sheffield scene, we wouldnt have got interpol, elbow and doves otherwise...

highlight had to be One Day Like This!

That's very true Andrew (Interpol were superb last year) - don't get me wrong, I love the fact that the Academy has opened (I also saw Black Kids there last year, and possibly my favourite gig of 2008, Amanda Palmer, there as well), I just wish they'd do it up a bit! Those sticky floors are horrendous!

Didn't spoil my enjoyment last night at all though.

By the way, I made a mistake on my original post. I said there was just one song from Asleep At The Back (Newborn) but of course there was Scattered Black & Whites as well. Just wish they'd played Powder Blue, but can't have everything!

Am beginning to lose hope of ever seeing them do Powder Blue or Fugitive Motel.......

Emma G wrote:

Am beginning to lose hope of ever seeing them do Powder Blue or Fugitive Motel.......

Me, Kim and Kim's friend asked Craig when we were outside after the Southend concert, if there was any likelihood of more of Cast... or Asleep in the back for later, or Wembley,...he sort of knew we were going to ask anyway!
More hope for Wembley, I guess .
It was a treat to get 'Any Day Now' on sunday... all livened up after that in Southend, but was personally hoping they had left out 'Leaders...' as the sentiment there is bit dated now, or 'Starlings' as I got blinded by those lights! ... and put in, such as the above, so the sets aren't so similar to all of last year.
But then it is them that are playing the songs every night. Its up to them... they are their songs.
I guess there has to be a balance with songs that the string girls contribute too, as they are on the road with them, and also which songs Guy gets to play on.

Thanks for the review, Finest Hour - I wrote a review of the Southend gig on Sunday which I have posted here in another thread. The Set List was the same as at Southend, apart from the fact that The Fix replaced Any Day Now. The lighting, which had been abysmal and blindingly oppressive at Southend, was so much better, though the venue was naff. Yet again, my hopes that they'd tinker with the set list enough to fit Powder Blue in, were dashed.

Guy recounted a number of anecdotes (such as playing 'Battleships' with Richard Hawley, and he REALLY got nicely carried away playing Newborn. Highlights abounded, from Guy intoning the word "name" from The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver's lyric, "send up a prayer in my na-ame", coinciding with that gorgeous key change, to Mirrorball.



Elbow – Sheffield O2 Academy – Tuesday 3rd March 2009

Set List:

Starlings
The Bones Of You
Mirrorball
Leaders Of The Free World
The Stops
The Fix (with Richard Hawley)
Mexican Standoff
Grounds For Divorce
The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver
Newborn
Switching Off
Weather To Fly
One Day Like This
--------------------
Station Approach
Some Riot
Scattered Black And Whites.

The Finest Hour wrote:

I was a bit wary about tonight's gig - I stupidly thought that, after the Brits and the Mercury, the gig may attract the casual fan who just turns up for a big singalong to One Day Like This and talks all the way through the rest of the songs. Not the case though

Unfortunately not, there were three of them by me. They ruined Switching Off, Some Riot and Scattered Black and White. I nearly inflicted violence during Some Riot when they were arsing about trying to get a photo of themselves with Guy in the background.

I was trying not to get too precious - don't you just hate those fans of bands who indulge in the kind of snobbery that says if you can't name all the b-sides then you aren't a Proper Fan? But whether you know every song backwards or just the latest hit, as far as I'm concerned you respect the songs you don't know. Not the case with this bunch, it seems they wanted sing-alongs, not the slower tunes. They even started moaning during Switching Off!

Anyway, apart from them, it was a pretty splendid evening. Set list pretty much as expected apart from Switching Off. Mark's shiny new guitar made a satisfyingly Big Noise during Grounds For Divorce. Guy didn't make any mistakes (that I heard) during Mexican Standoff, turned out to be one of my highlights of the night. Missed Forget Myself from the set list and I long for the day that they play Fugitive Motel again, but I can't really complain!

And a bizarre girly aside - telly really does make you look fatter. Either that or they've all lost a stone in the last week.

New to this forum and relatively new to Elbow, who i discovered in 2005. The band never cease to amaze me and this is the 3rd time i have seen them live, and probably the most enjoyable for me. Although all tracks were highlights, the one's that stuck out for me were Bones of You, Weather to Fly, and Crane Driver - all incredible.
I was near the front with my 13 y/o son (who loves Elbow too!) and can concur that those 3 right next to us were knoobs of the highest order at times - i got the impression they were there for the occasion.

Nice to see Richard Hawley join them onstage, but not exactly a massive surprise with the Sheffield connection

I disagree with the critisism of the venue - carpets apart (!!) i think it's a good venue, plenty of bars and acoustically very good.

The Acorn were good too, so all in all a memorable night

Back to my Heavy Rock and Amplifier in Leeds on saturday

Just adding that i was there on the 3rd too, and agree with pretty much everything said in the thread except that i quite liked the Academy (sticky carpets aside, of course) in that it wasn't too small yet you felt close enough even at the back (not that i was at the back, but that's the impression i got)

It's a better space than the Octagon anyway, the last place in Sheffield i saw them.