Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating  * * * *

Elbow are not Britain’s hidden treasure anymore. While the band and their albums have always been the critics’ favourite, they never became really famous. Until there was their magnificent, Mercury award-winning The Seldom Seen Kid, which launched the band into stardom: they sang for the B.B.C., wrote the Olympics tune and played into sold-out stadiums. Now they have released another splendid album, The Take off and Landing of Everything, and this is celebrated with a world tour at the biggest venues. The kick-off of this tour, call it a warm-up if you like after a hiatus of fourteen months, however, starts at a very small and venue: Paradiso in Amsterdam.

About1500 fortunate souls attended this highly exclusive gig, causing a run on the tickets, which were sold out in mere seconds and rightly so: Elbow, as always, give the audience their very best and played 15 songs from the latest three albums in such a way that their omission of any songs from their previous three only seemed logical. Guy Garvey is the perfect frontman and gentleman; he takes the time to introduce the new songs to the audience and to share his feelings about the beautiful setting and crowd at the Paradiso.

The song they started with is called Charge, from their latest album. It’s a political song, which immediately captured the attention. It was almost two hours later, when they finished with their best-known song One Day Like This, when they loosened it and the gig was ended. The set list was exciting enough as they switched between stadium songs like Open Arms and Grounds for Divorce and intimate, small songs like The Night Will Always Win and My Sad Captains. It proves their unique position in the music industry as they can play anything without it ever sounding forced. Instead, you can see in their eyes that they truly mean everything they sing, which only makes them more sympathetic than they already are.

With songs like these, and such a live reputation it comes as no surprise that Elbow have become one of the biggest bands from Britain. Did they really need to warm up before venturing to their home stadiums? Probably not. But it is good to know that they haven’t become too big or arrogant for the smaller venues.

Elke Maasbommel