A couple of regular Uncut.co.uk readers posted messages on our Wild Mercury Sound blog this week to sing the praises of Elbow’s Meltdown gig at the Royal Festival Hall. According to this review on the Observer blog, the show featured a giant organ, a choir of Guy Garvey lookalikes and children with trumpets.

All of which bodes well, naturally, for Elbow’s Saturday night slot on the Obelisk stage at Latitude. Garvey’s crew are always keen to generate a special sense of occasion, so we’re sure they’ll have some grand stunt planned for the festival. The brilliance of Elbow, though, depends on the way those big gestures are balanced with a very intimate, human sensitivity.

With this year’s excellent fourth album, “The Seldom Seen Kid”, Elbow seem to have finally moved out of that problematic “Critically-Acclaimed” ghetto and towards proper fame. It’s hard to imagine a British band of the past few years who’ve deserved success more – or, come to think of it, a band who could be as rousing and inspirational as Elbow undoubtedly will be at Latitude.