When an idea is exciting enough, the natural response is to laugh. And I had a right laugh recently with four total strangers. They were key players behind this year’s Meltdown Festival: Neill Quinton (participation programmer), Jane Beese (senior music programmer), Ed Smith (technical director) and Mary King (the director of Voicelab, which provides opportunities for both amateur and professional singers).

When Elbow met them to discuss the band’s involvement in the festival, it soon became apparent that – along with the orchestrator John Browne – these like-minded souls were not only more than willing to help us put on a great show, but also incredibly enthusiastic about the possibilities for music performance in general. And that sort of thing’s catching.

When Rob (3D) Delnaja from Massive Attack – the curators of the festival for 2008 – asked Elbow to play he said: “Do something different; do something special, something you’ve always wanted to do.”

So we went to the meeting with a few ideas. “Can we have a choir, please? A massive one?” we said. Mary King, of Voicelab, suggested a choir of 20. I said: “Some of the songs have choruses that sound more like football crowds. Can we have 40?”

This wasn’t a problem – Voicelab has the means and the ambition to do great big things – and it wasn’t all, either. The offers came thick and fast. “We have a beautiful pipe organ in the Festival Hall – could you use it?” asked Ed Smith. Craig, our keyboards player, blushed, grinned and said: “Thank you.” I mentioned a brass part and was asked if I want a brass section. The buzz for the project from these strangers was flattering and inspiring. These people want to help people make spectacular events.

We left the meeting on such a high – and with such high hopes for Meltdown – that it reminded me of other times that people with enthusiasm for the music we were making secured or supplied funding to make stuff possible.

When Elbow started out 18 years ago, rehearsal space was expensive and buying our own equipment was the stuff that dreams were made of. A bloke called Geoff ran a rock school at our Sixth Form college. On a Wednesday they gave us a space and lent us equipment. Then the Prince’s Trust gave us £500, enough for us to get ourselves and our borrowed gear to France in a yellow ex-British Telecom van.

During the three weeks we spent there together, we all fell so deeply in love with the idea of making music every day that I believe it kept us going for the next seven years until we got a recording contract.

Earlier than that, the local Catholic priest allowed my first band, the Synoptic Reverb (yikes) – who never played a gig but looked great – to use the scout hut for rehearsals. This experience, although cut short by Father O when we left the heating on for a week, led to where I am now. For young me, being in a band wasn’t just about making music – it was about belonging to something too.

So here’s an idea to laugh about. Young musicians need a room. What they do in there is up to them. There are many struggling rehearsal room facilities in the country. I propose some kind of sponsorship – private, government, Arts Council, who cares – to give a soundproofed space containing basic equipment to anybody who wants it. Advice and tuition are already available across the UK, but if we give people room, 16 years from now maybe they’ll be laughing with total strangers, too.

Elbow play Massive Attack’s Meltdown at the Festival Hall (0871-663 2500) on June 16 2008

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