(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)
Artist: Mumford & Sons
When: August 4th, 2013
Where: River stage, Osheaga, Jean Drapeau Park, Montreal
Context: Ten years ago this summer, I attended Montreal’s Osheaga arts and music festival with my good friends Tim and Mark. It was an unforgettable weekend and we saw countless amazing performances over the festival’s three days. I’ve already posted photos* from some of the weekend’s sets and plan to share a few more of these in the months leading up to this year’s edition, which I will sadly not be attending. Some of these posts will have fewer photos than my normal galleries, including today’s, but this should not be taken to be indicative of the quality of the performances, but of the difficulty of obtaining quality pics while being so completely in the moment.
If I am being completely honest here, we didn’t stick around for Mumford and Sons’ whole festival-ending set. After all the excitement of New Order just beforehand and all the rest of the great sets we had seen that weekend, the British indie folk outfit felt a bit anticlimactic. They had just released their second album and were still on top of the world so they had amassed a huge crowd for their set and they were right into it. Live, the group really does the high energy thing well but they sounded just a little too slick. As Tim quipped: “They’re pretty good. They sound just like they do on the albums.” After the first few songs, though, the allure of sitting down in a pub and drinking something other than Molson Canadian or Coors Light was just too great.**
Point of reference song: “I will wait”
*Past galleries from this festival weekend have included the following:
**I’ll be getting a second chance at catching a whole set by Mumford this summer at this year’s Bluesfest.
My (life in) music lists 