F  L  A  U  N  T

It’s official. The world has flipped. Literally. Up is now down, north is now south, right is now wrong, and Elbow now makes protest music. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you. It’s just with all the apparent danger ahead, you kinda hate to have a safe space get upended.  Then again, you could say Elbow has always made a sorta protest music. Bad taste, bad behaviour, bad ideas, bad pop -- Elbow has, in their own special way, long been protesting them all. No, the band didn’t mount soapboxes or take to the streets. They didn’t have to. Because consistently being good in a world gone bad was protest enough. Consistently being damn good was even better. And, if anything, Elbow has always been even better. But there comes a time when the converse is not enough. When consistency has lost its cache, standards have lost their standing and even the best can’t counteract the worst. When people of conscience really have no choice but to speak up -- or be forced to forever hold their peace. That time, of course, is now. This being Elbow, speaking up doesn’t mean screaming and shouting. It doesn’t mean letting ire entirely will out or allowing anger to completely ruin the day either. It does though mean adding a touch of menace to some characteristically beautiful music, then taking that newfound adventure in sound out on the road. We’re talkin’ about the recent _Giants of All Sizes_, which spurred the band to stage at L.A.’s fabled Wiltern Theater on Sunday. Like all Elbow albums, _Giants_ is a sonically expansive undertaking. Strings get stretched, keys get reset, and time gets interrupted. Unlike previous Elbow albums, many of the songs directly take on the sad state of current affairs. “Empires” addresses disparity and desperation; “Dexter & Sinister” laments Brexit; “White Noise White Heat” reels over London’s tragic Grenfell Tower Fire. Each track proves Elbow is mad. Damn mad. And they’re not willing to ignore it anymore.  Of course, Elbow is still Elbow. They’ve always had more in common with Genesis’ _Foxtrot_ than The Clash’s _Combat Rock_ and even a world coming crumbling down won’t change that. It simply compels the band to up the ante. And to rise to a very dire situation. At The Wiltern Elbow rose alright, and 2300+ rose right along with them. And much of it was due to _Giants_. Those new protest songs served to galvanize the crowd, and the album’s more personal tunes (especially “Weightless”) reminded everyone why we needed to be galvanized in the first place.    Yes, _Giants_ is undoubtedly the album Elbow was destined to make. And it was a blessing to be on hand to hear what they’d made of such fate. But the band’s got seven other albums of glorious songs in its repertoire, not to mention a twenty-year strong fanbase who know the words to each and every one of them. So when the band broke out with past classics, the room rose even higher. Perhaps most rousing of all was _Leaders of the Free World_’s “Station Approach,” which came smack dab in the center of the band’s two-hour set. The song’s vintage Elbow. It starts off quietly, with intricate wordplay circling in on itself, then builds to a chamber-backed chant that eventually breaks into a cloudburst. And as the sound rains down hearts swells up until the room becomes fully ascendant. The phenomenon can only be felt live, amid a sea of acolytes. And it was a roarful reminder of just why we go to concerts.  Was anyone’s mind changed by Elbow’s protest music? Probably not. Was everyone swayed by their newfound adventure in sound? Most decidedly. And no matter how much the world wanes, there will always be something to be said about being swayed above the fray. Thank Zeus there are bands out there like Elbow to sway us.  * * * Photographed by [Chad J. Kotz](https://www.instagram.com/chadjkotz/)