Who are Elbow? Simply the best band around. A bunch of Manchester schoolboys who have grown up together and stuck with each other for nearly two decades and who are now reaping the rewards of loyalty, tenacity – and talent.

Guy Garvey looks like the sort of bloke you’d meet down the pub or have round to fit a new fuseboard. Even his mum wouldn’t claim he was handsome and he certainly doesn’t fit the rock-god mould. He isn’t married to a glamorous film star, for example, but he can sing the pants off Chris Martin (who is, apparently, a fan and a mate).

It’s what he sings that makes the band special. The songs cover all the usual ground: love lost, love found, horse-racing. There is wistfulness, exuberance, humour and pathos – but never bathos. This man has an eye for a situation and an ear for a telling phrase: the nightclub bouncer who is "mercifully free of the pressures of grace, St Peter in satin, like Buddha with mace’; the hopeful lover declaring ‘you are the only thing in any room you’re ever in, I’m sullen, selfish and too old".

All this is combined with great melodies, good old-fashioned musicianship – listen to Craig Potter’s piano – and spot-on timing. Oh yes, and then there’s the dirty guitar of Grounds for Divorce, just in case it all seems a bit too happy families.

The stars of Glastonbury, Mercury Prize winners: Elbow are the band of 2008.

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