It wasn't Elbow's biggest audience, but the burial crypt at London's St Paul's Cathedral provided the setting for one of the Mercury Prize-winning band's most memorable gigs. 'It was amazing,' recalls Elbow's drummer Richard Jupp over the phone from his Manchester home days before the band play a rollicking set at Glastonbury ('not just the highlight of this year's festival so far but one of the all-time greats', according to The Guardian).
St Paul's in May was one of the band's first gigs in support of Build a Rocket Boys!, their new album. 'There were only a couple of hundred people there, and it was such an austere environment,' says Jupp. 'We were trying to be very respectful of everything, and to be honest it went down really well.'
For Elbow, who in 2008 shot to international prominence after a surprise but universally applauded victory at Britain's pre-eminent pop music awards, the gig was the latest in a series of remarkable live performances, which in the past couple of years included concerts at Wembley Arena, Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, and numerous top billings at festivals in Europe. Ever the musical innovators, they've also made a habit of playing with orchestras and choirs, including a notable outing with the Halle Youth Choir. But St Paul's, in the midst of the bones of Lord Nelson, the first duke of Wellington, and Sir Christopher Wren, was special.
'That was one of the more nervous performances, just because of the surroundings, really,' says Jupp. The band, known for its cheerful imbibing, even refrained from drinking on stage - though Jupp confesses to a couple of pre-set whiskeys, just to calm the nerves.
St Paul's Cathedral seems an appropriate venue for Elbow, who over two decades and five albums have been producing reverent pop and rock that has slowly built a hugely dedicated - almost religious - following. Since forming under the name Mr Soft as teenagers in 1990, Jupp, singer Guy Garvey, bassist Pete Turner, brothers Mark (guitar) and Craig Potter (keyboards) have weathered the worst the music industry could wreak. Having initially been signed to Island Records and then dropped when the label was bought by Universal, the band signed to V2. With V2, they released three critically acclaimed albums - including gold-selling Asleep in the Back (2001) and Cast of Thousands (2003) - but were dropped again after 2005's Leaders of the Free World produced only lukewarm commercial success.
Throughout those trials, however, Elbow drew praise for their music, with Garvey's smokey tenor wrapping itself around lyrics both plaintive and uplifting, backed by a band that know the power of restraint and just the right moment to burst into climactic euphoria. This complexity is beautifully captured in the song Grace Under Pressure, from Cast of Thousands. The number is a 'classic Elbow builder', as Jupp describes it, five minutes of perfect rock in which gentle guitar strums and Garvey's sotto voce give way to firecracker drumming, the sweet harmonisations of a choir, and, ultimately, the voices of thousands of Glastonbury fans, all singing: 'We still believe in love, so f*** you'.