Elbow at the O2

I hate going to the O2 for gigs. Not just because it is a soulless cavernous venue that isn't easy to get to, but because it is so expensive and they try to make the experience as unpleasant as reasonably possible once you have bought your ticket. Actually one better thing this time - they have airport type scanners now so you can just walk through rather than being individually searched, once you have navigated the slalom of fences to get to the entrance. But the real aggravation for me this time is that you can only access your ticket through their own app. Obviously I tried this in advance. And it was hopeless. By which I mean sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't. I had numerous goes during the day. In the end I had to take two phones and yes it worked on one and not the other (the reverse having been true earlier in the afternoon).

It isn't that I am not used to tickets on apps. I have a Ticketmaster one and it works just fine. But for an O2 gig, the Ticketmaster app doesn't show the ticket but tells you that you need to go through the O2 app. And it is not a good advert for a technology company. Apart from anything else, am I alone in being fed up with having to download yet another app, add a new password, etc?

And obviously don't even think of buying a drink. Exorbitant prices and, later in the event, ridiculous queues.

Ok, enough moaning. The gig.

Well there was only one support act with a longer than usual set. The Waeve, pronounced "wave". They are a duo, the guitarist being Graham Coxon of Blur fame. They were awful. Not I hasten to add, OBJECTIVELY awful. Subjectively awful. Just so much what I hate. Self indulgent, meandering, verging on prog rock but without as much of the rock, more keyboard where you might expect guitar. My impression not helped by the lights on the side of the stage flashing right in my eyes, totally blinding me. Lady next to me "watched" the entire set facing the audience with her back to the stage.

Graham Coxon

So by now I was feeling a bit grumpy. All of which faded away with the appearance of Elbow. Which is ironic given that Guy Garvey is the very image of a grumpy old man. But nobody at all has a better rapport with his audience than Guy. It is just such a warm relationship. And you can only have that sort of patter if you are an intelligent bloke and he really must be that. This was perfect love-in with 10,000 people.

A lot of the stuff was off their new album, of course, opening with the opening track of the record, Things I Have Been Telling Myself For Years, which is a very decent song and will no doubt be added to their repertoire of favourites. Their back catalogue is now so huge tat you don't know what of the old songs you will get from their collection, apart from Mirrorball and One Day Like This. This set included the Bones of You, Grounds for Divorce, Birds, Lippy Kids, Magnificent, My Sad Captains and Station Approach (which I can only remember as "Little Sod" because if its lyrics.

Given my distance from the stage (although on the front barrier) it was difficult to get a good shot where Guy is both still and well lit, but eventually I got some!

And for mirrorball, of course out come the mirrorballs, both at side of the stage and hanging from the dome over the audience

Of course they finished the encore with One Day Like This, their signature tune. But not in my view their best by any means. I feel they are almost embarrassed at having to wheel it out every single performance to their arm waving fans. But you have to give most people what they want most. Elbow deliver every time. Just wish they would go back to playing smaller venues. Or a festival maybe.