If you don’t know, Mumford & Sons are a four-piece folk band from the Big Smoke who play lovely Irish-tinged ditties with accordions and banjo’s and stuff. I think they’re dope and it was only a matter of time before they crossed over into the mainstream and made middle class mothers cry into their glasses of wine after reading about them in the Observer Music Monthly. They were personally invited to support The Pogues at their Christmas shows last winter and any band who can manage to wake Shane McGowan out of his whiskey and cheap hash slumber for long enough to actually make a judgment on their music gets some props from me.

If my slightly drunk memory serves me correct they opened with “Awake my Soul” and started plouging through favourites such as “Little Lion Man”, the new single that is on BBC6 seemingly every 5 fucking minutes. It was a lot dancier than i was expecting which was definitely a good thing, but halfway through they brought the tempo down and started playing some new songs. GREAT. Nah, new songs sounded good but it just seemed an odd set list in my opinion. Things picked up at the end though and they even used a real life drum kit in a few songs (!). They finished with the brilliant “Roll Away My Stone” and although they didn’t play “Liar”, this was only a minor glitch. Id been wanting to see this lot for ages now, having missed their last Brighton gig exactly a year ago and it definitely wasnt a disappointment. It seemed like a band on the cusp of something pretty special and they’ve certainly got the songwriting talent to take the potential further. Expect some pretty impressive festival shows next summer id imagine…

Its funny, i really don’t see myself as a folk/acoustic fan, but two of my favourite shows of the last year have been this and Bon Iver…Maybe I’m becoming a middle class mother? Oh well, rather that than some brainless little twat who’s still banging on about dub step i guess….

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