/THE MAIN EVENT ELBOW ARE BACK AND ‘IN A GOOD PLACE’

ELBOW come home this month as the Bury band embarks on a four-night run at Manchester’s Apollo - and there should be a very special end to the tour for frontman Guy Garvey. The band are on tour right up until the due date of Garvey’s first baby with wife Rachael Stirling.

“It’s only the UK so I’m home every couple of days but it’s not ideal let’s put it that way,” Garvey told BBC Radio 5 live when announcing their news. I’m just overjoyed you know. I’m so lucky.”

He later said that his phone is always on standby - even when on stage - just in case there are ‘rumblings of labour’ - although he joked he’d have to finish whatever song he was singing before nipping off home if the call comes.

A new baby always puts you in a reflective mood, and Garvey will be looking back at a body of work that spans 16 years now, since the release of Elbow’s first album Asleep in the Back. The band go back another ten years on top of that. Since then, they have progressed from local favourites to national treasures. Little Fictions is even winning over those who were fond if not fervent about a band that are now classed as a banker for any big festival promoter.

A canny - and welcome - choice of venues for this tour then. More nights in smaller venues rather than the arena tour they could have easily sold out. Elbow do well for intimacy, even in the most vast spaces, but there is something slightly more meaningful about a big band in a compact venue.

Garvey also took a brief stint away from the band, of course, to make and tour solo record Courting The Squall. It had taken him until that point to feel that he could do it without people thinking the band would split up - and the success of the band has made it easier for him to go off on his own for a while. “I’m fully aware I can only do this because of the hard work of Elbow,” he told us at the time. “I don’t see it as me having an affair.”

A change was clearly as good as a rest as the band have returned in scintillating form with their new long player, Little Fictions. Reviews of their latest tour have noticed a ‘re-energised romanticism.’ Garvey is happy to tell anyone who’ll listen how happy he is. The band are in a good place.

And for four nights this month, that place is Ardwick. The Apollo / March 18, 19, 20 and 21 / sold out