Mumford & Sons 6/3/10

There was a range of conflicting feelings at this gig but there is one thing I am fairly sure of. This band is going to be very big. They have the musicanship, the energy and the anthemic sound to take the stadia route, a la U2, if they chose. Let's hope they don't go that way.

There were two support acts - I missed most of the first because the venue apparently were unable to tell me a few hours before the gig whether there was a support act or indeed anything about the gig. Strange. He was a singer songwriter and on the basis of a couple of tracks I could maybe say that he was a little on the pretentious side.

The second band, Fanfarlo, were good, the fiddle was fairly strident, the bassist fluid and loud, the singer sang rhythmically, a bit like David Byrne does and all in all they had something about them. Maybe a bit Arcade Fireish.

Mumford & Sons came on to great enthusiasm from the packed sold-out hall and immediately reeled off four popular tracks from their album starting with "Rumour and Sigh", then "Winter Winds". The audience was transfixed and it was good stuff.. However apart from the last of those four tracks which did have some edgy rhythms to it, I felt that I had heard more or less what is on the album. True the bass was coming up through the floor, and yes it's always good to hear music live, but I wasn't sure whether anything creative and improvised was going on. They then did a new track (after apologising for doing so) and that to me was one of the high points. As was the next new track which was done three tracks later after a couple more from the album.

The gig was a little short at an hour and a quarter including encore but every track was delivered with high energy and the audience was more than happy.

As for the Yorkshire twat who split his beer over my head after talking through the gig - I only hope he crashed on the way home whilst uninsured and then got breathalysed. As I said mixed feelings but I still have the music running through my head three days later so they must have been doing something right.