Last summer, Shed Seven at York’s Museum Gardens was the hottest ticket in town. Buoyed by the success, the venue look to be making live music there a regular thing.

By Graeme Smith

Photos by Stuart Duthie

Of course, York Proms are held there every year, but ambitious rock concerts are new kids on the block. In a decent-sized city with no arena, there’s certainly a gap in the market and The Museum Gardens have done well to exploit it.

This weekend sees an impressive line-up of established artists and rising local stars. The likes of English Teacher, Jalen Ngonda and Billie Marten might be headlining one day, but for now provide support slots that will catch the eye of younger fans.

There was no doubt on Thursday that most were there for Elbow, but Eliza Carthy and Billie Marten certainly entertained. The former found herself growing old gracefully with a new rock album and had plenty of stage presence and energy to open things up.

The latter also has a new album, Dog Eared, on the way so mixed in some new tracks alongside old favourites. Last time I saw her was at The Crescent and this performance was a stripped-back set in comparison. Elbow’s Guy Garvey made a cameo to perform Nick Drake’s All My Trials as a duet with her which got the crowd revved up.

Elbow have a lush, cinematic sound that plays well in a formal garden on a summer evening. They, of course, wheeled out the hits but also had some news ones to play in a two hour set. Their tour supports the release of the deluxe edition of their 2024 album, AUDIO VERTIGO.

There were stories too. Garvey is quite the orator and his easy patter has landed him a radio show on BBC 6 Music.

A mostly mellow set ended on the raucous Grounds for Divorce and the encore finished inevitably with One Day Like This, their ode to those rare occasions that the British weather holds. It’s been doing a lot of that recently, so I suppose the message was lost a little, but the fans still dug it.

Eliza Carthy & The Restitution, Billie Marten and Elbow played at York Museum Garden on Thursday 3 July 2025.