Three unlikely events to encounter when gigging:
1) Observing the audience making ham and cheese sandwiches for the band and feeding them to the keyboard player while he's performing.
2) W&H being pressed into service drawing raffle tickets when the band have completed their set.
3) The band closing a rapturously received set with a gorgeous, Gershwin-esque piano ballad and being able to hear a pin drop while they play it.
Unlikely, but all true on what turned into a celebration and a half and a damn cool way to usher in a possibility-laden 2005. But then that's Cork's ELEPHANT for you. Expect the unexpected, says the rule, and so it's proved in spades tonight.
The band made one of 2004's most intiguing debut albums with "In The Moon" and are playing a short round of Irish dates while they consider their next move. The future is currently something of a blank page, but what tonight makes abundantly clear is that they have at least another terrific album in them should they so choose.
The place is chocker and the band are doing the decent thing by collecting for Tsunami relief, but even the post-New Year hangover and the fact a storm is brewing up outside fails to detract attention for any length of time.
They (quietly) take the evening by the scruff of the neck and open with two freshly-minted tunes. The first, "Buses And Bars" swings low and moody and is achingly languid, while "Picture Frame" is a little more sprightly and typical of the band, but nonetheless a step forward.
They dip into more familiar album territory with early outings for the offbeat jazzy resignation of "Punch A Hole" and the slow and sensual "Maybe Tomorrow." A little sparser than usual tonight, it's a fine piece of work and when Catherine sings "maybe tomorrow you'll slap me in the face and tell me go the fuck away" it's brilliantly against the musical grain and all the more poignant for it.
Traditional set closer "Gordian Knot" comes much earlier tonight and it's strutting, groove-based presence is welcome, as are Catherine's come-to-bed vocals and the way Keith's violin sweeps in and takes it to another plane altogther. Usually, your reviewer is longing for more in this vein from Elephant, but tonight they also wheel out new songs like "Vaguely Fat" and "What Were You Hoping For?" which suggests changes have been taking place. The former is built around a circular violin and piano riff and is pleasantly beefy, while "What Were You Hoping For?" (introduced by Michael John as being "taken mostly from Sunday supplements") is by some way the fizziest and poppiest Elephant have yet sounded. It suits them too, as does the initally wacky chorus that appears to feature the line "put more room into your bedroom", although that could be the Holsten Pils talking.
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Elephant's sheer diversity and the chopping and changing of instruments can sometimes be challenging to the casual observer, but as the richness of the material becomes apparent, it makes more sense, like when Michael John switches to accordion and Catherine and keyboard maestro Ciaran duet on the stark, Will Oldham-style "Marianne", or the whole band play with almost supernatural restraint on the lovely, melancholic "Rocking Chair": for this writer still the album's high water mark and performed adroitly tonight.
They enter the home strait with Ciaran being passed sandwiches by the audience stageside (hey, politeness is the new rock'n'roll, y'know!) and Michael John leading into a clapalong "Pop Song" with a hilarious snatch of "You Are Always On My Mind" (evilly altered to "You were always with my wife"). The Richard Thompson-referencing "Pop Song" itself is nicely cynical as ever and performed with gusto. It's the obvious place to call it quits, but instead Ciaran and Catherine takes us to the finish line with the utterly lovely "Goodnight". The fact the rowdy audience shut the fuck up to a (wo)man speaks volumes in itself.
And so it's over, save for W&H to help draw some raffle tickets in aid of Tsunami Relief. We miss out on the Elephant -designed 2005 calendar (drat!) and the crate of Heineken (double drat!), but still go away enriched after witnessing what has been a consistently life-affirming show from one of Ireland's best new bands. Whether it's the end of an era or simply the start of a new and thrilling chapter for Elephant remains unclear, but to these ears they have a future and its' theirs for the taking if they want it.
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