Mumford And Sons – My (life in) music lists

Live music galleries: Mumford & Sons [2013]

(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.)

Mumford and Sons @ Osheaga 2013

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”

Winston Marshall on banjo

Ben Lovett and Marcus Mumford

Ted Dwane and Winston Marshall

Marcus Mumford

*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.

100 best covers: #79 Mumford And Sons “The boxer”

<< #80 | #78 >>

Here’s one that might incite comments. Or maybe it’ll just incite vitriol. I usually finish these posts with the question of which you prefer, the cover or the original, but I’m pretty I sure I know the answer to this one already.

Mumford and Sons brought back the banjo in a big way in the late 2000s. It feels like the centre around which their platinum-selling debut album, “Sigh no more”, crowded, but really, they used a lot of non-traditional rock instruments to build their sound. I really liked the debut when I first heard it (still do, really) and because I don’t often listen to commercial radio, didn’t realize that it made them a household name until I saw a part of their set at Osheaga in 2013. Already by this time, though, the typical backlash that accompanies a meteoric rise had begun to set in. There really is a lot of hate out there for them. I’m not sure I completely understand it. However, I will say that with each successive album I’ve become more and more ambivalent, especially after they dispensed with their trademark sound on their third record and started to head down the vanilla pop road, hot on the trails of Coldplay.

They covered Simon & Garfunkel’s classic folk pop tune, “The boxer”, just before they remade themselves, and released it as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of their 2012 sophomore release, “Babel”. This is a tune I have known and loved since high school and can remember singing the words along with my classmates on the bus trip back from a particular weekend winter retreat. Though Simon & Garfunkel were usually on the quieter side of folk, this was a jauntier number and when I saw that Mumford had covered it, I thought I would enjoy it even before I had heard it.

The instrumentation is different but the feel is very much in the same vein, the banjo, resonator guitar, and even Marcus Mumford’s vocals lending the tune some uplifting sadness. And it is just as easy to sing along with on that “la la lie” chorus.

So though I won’t bother asking the question, I will say that at least Paul Simon must have approved of this cover, given that he appeared on it, along with resonator guitar legend Jerry Douglas.

The cover:

The original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.