Elbow is the band that inspired the phrase "quiet is the new loud", and quiet they remain, despite the wattage of live performance. Headlining the first night of a series celebrating the Shepherd's Bush Empire's 10th anniversary, they illustrate the strength of subtlety, while arguing that sad is the new happy.

In contrast to the music, the group themselves seem cheery as they take up their places on a vast leopardskin carpet. Their one concession to glitz, the carpet has special meaning, apparently: "It goes with Pete's thong," says leader Guy Garvey - a robust type compared to the waifs who usually front northern bands - who looks disconcertingly like ex-Westlifer Brian McFadden. Pete, the bass player, laughs barkingly and they plunge into Red, a bruised little torch song from their Mercury-nominated debut album, Asleep in the Back. The effect of this and every subsequent number is extraordinary: the crowd are completely rapt, the female half looking longingly at Garvey, who switches from genial joker to angsty poet as the first chords take the mood down.

Now two albums old, Elbow have a couple of dozen songs from which to choose, all saturated with loss and regret, and tonight's set list of 13 is from the heavier (relatively speaking) end of the repertoire. When they want to, they can be brief and brutal, as on Mexican Standoff - played live for the first time - but mostly they err on the side of brooding tension, ratcheting up the mood by tiny increments.

Bitten by the Tailfly takes ages, and the efforts of two trumpeters, to come to its quietly shuddering conclusion, by which point Garvey is bedraggled from the extertion of holding back. He gives full vent to melancholia at the end of the show on Newborn, an acoustic showstopper sung sitting down. There's a dash of 1980s rockers Big Country to this one, in its evocation of lonely landscapes, to which Garvey adds his touchy-feely sensibility. By now, some people are on the verge of swooning, though you don't have to go to those lengths to appreciate Elbow's subtle drama.