Elbow

Elbow formed at Stand College in Whitefield in 1990 and spent the best part of a decade being dropped by labels, ignored by radio, and playing to small rooms while writing songs that were clearly better than most of what was charting. Guy Garvey’s voice – warm, conversational, slightly beery – and the band’s patient, layered sound didn’t fit the Britpop moment. They kept going anyway.

Asleep in the Back finally came out on V2 in 2001 and got a Mercury nomination. Cast of Thousands in 2003 featured the Manchester Apollo audience singing on Grace Under Pressure – they recorded the crowd at one of their residency shows. Leaders of the Free World, The Seldom Seen Kid (which won the Mercury Prize in 2008), Build a Rocket Boys! – they got better with every record. One Day Like This became their anthem, the song that fills stadiums and gets arms around shoulders.

The Apollo is their spiritual home. Regular residencies there over the years, and it suits them – big enough to feel like an event, small enough to stay personal. Garvey is a genuine Manchester presence: he presented a BBC 6 Music show, he’s been spotted in pubs across Bury and the Northern Quarter, he talks about the city with obvious love and zero sentimentality.

Elbow aren’t cool in the way that Joy Division or the Roses are cool. They’re not trying to be. They’re the band you put on when you want to feel something without being hit over the head with it. Bury doesn’t produce many national treasures, but Garvey and his mates are the real thing. Still going, still filling rooms, still sounding like a warm night walking home.