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After witnessing Mumford & Sons play the main stage at Leeds Festival in August of this year, we, like many others were eager to see how the band adapted to a show entirely of their own making. Once arriving at Sheffield’s Motorpoint Arena, we had a sneaking suspicion we wouldn’t be disappointed.
Fresh from being awarded the Brits Critics’ Choice of 2016, supporting act Jack Garratt emphasised why he collected the accolade with a scintillating display of musical talent. The multi-instrumentalist, sporting a retro Playstation jumper, snapback and impressive beard, treated us to songs both old and new; with a personal highlight being ‘Weathered’ from his upcoming debut album, Phase, due in February 2016.
It’s not difficult to see why Garratt was hand-picked by Mumford & Sons as support for their UK arena tour. His guitar playing was phenomenal, dripping in reverb and producing a raw sound which resonated throughout the arena. Garratt’s infectious enthusiasm and eclectic performance resounded with the Sheffield crowd, and the set could happily have carried on for an hour longer, and we wished it had – his singing voice is like no other. Phenomenal.
As Mumford & Sons took to the stage, absent of the waistcoats which gave them their ‘Gentlemen of the Road’ label, the change in appearance immediately seemed better suited to the musical transition the band find themselves in.
Wilder Mind divided a lot of people upon its release, but Mumford fans needn’t be worried. The band seamlessly intertwined tracks from multi-million selling predecessors Sigh No More and Babel, with the titular track of the latter being the band’s second song of the night – reassuring us that even with the transition from acoustic folk troubadours to black-denimed rock band, the banjo-fuelled releases of old are not forgotten.
‘Little Lion Man’ exemplified this as the band’s third track, with the crowd taking it upon themselves to orchestrate the song’s bridge. One of the nights most rewarding moments saw Marcus Mumford remove his ear piece and beam a smile to the crowd’s chorus; reminding us that even after a meteoric rise to the top, transatlantic success and a Grammy award, it’s moments like these that the band thrive on, and it’s moments like these that makes gigs magical.
The setlist itself was varied and encompassing of the band’s most prominent numbers. ‘Believe’ sparked a mass waving of lighters and phone flashlights, before Winston Marshall soothed with a mesmeric guitar line on the anthemic ‘Tompkins Square Park’ – evidence enough for me that although Wilder Mind is of a different sound, the heart is still undeniably the same.
Mumford demonstrated his own musical prowess by switching to one of two drum kits on stage as he energetically smashed through ‘Lover of the Light’ and ‘Thistle and Weeds’, before a brief rest and change of pace with the sombre yet hauntingly beautiful ‘Ghosts That We Knew’.
The soothing guitar riff of ‘Monster’ was sandwiched between the euphoric ‘I Will Wait’ and ‘Whispers in the Dark’ of Babel – a personal highlight being that it was the first performance of the track since 2013.
Mumford demonstrated their performance range in switching to a ‘B-stage’ in the centre of the arena crowd, effortlessly performing Sigh No More’s ‘Timshel’ and Wilder Mind’s ‘Cold Arms’. The crowd remained eerily and respectfully silent for the acoustically performed pair, with only a murmur of voices accompanying the echo of Mumford’s voice throughout the venue.
Fans were treated in the encore to a rendition of Springsteen’s ‘I’m on Fire’, before the band finished on ‘The Wolf’ – Marcus Mumford’s impressively roaring voice bringing the show to a close.
The setlist alone made queueing outside in the blustery winter winds more than worthwhile, and the band’s effortless rendition of their back catalogue supplied further evidence that whether you love or hate them, there’s no denying that Mumford & Son’s know how to ace an arena gig.