It says much about the rise of Mumford & Sons that four dates on their current tour have had to be postponed due to the stage set-up being too ambitious.
The stage in question — a kind of futuristic pirate ship that last night dropped anchor in the centre of the O2 — is a world away from Bosun’s Locker, the 60-capacity basement bar on King’s Road, Chelsea, where the four Londoners first road-tested their material more than a decade ago.
But then, the success of Mumford & Sons was always one of the music industry’s more unlikely stories: four tweed-wearing folkies who ended up transatlantic superstars.
Their latest, tweed-free tour is in support of their fourth album Delta, which sees them explore darker, dancier territory. Marcus Mumford and his non-biological Sons began with its lead single Guiding Light, which was built on insistent rhythms and Mumford’s piratical vocals.
Inevitably, perhaps, it was the old material that met with the biggest response. The Cave, from the band’s chart-topping debut Sigh No More, cued an arena-wide hoedown. New track The Wild, by contrast, drifted by largely unnoticed.
There’s been a subtle shift in the band dynamic too, with Mumford not only handling the lead vocals but all of the between-song chat. As a result, some of the banter and bonhomie — a fixture of the Sons’ early gigs — was missing. All the band clearly get excited by the new material, such as the dystopian Darkness Visible, yet the fevered response to old classics such as Little Lion Man make it difficult for them to bid farewell to the banjo.
With a foot in either camp, it will be interesting to see where this band, who have come so far, decide to go next.
