Music followers might remember Cream’s classic, “Strange Brew,” and what a strange – and wondrous – “brew” Mumford and Sons served up to a full house of adoring fans Saturday night at Saratoga Performing Arts Center on Saturday, June 21.
On tour for Rushmere, their first album in six years, the Brit band offered an intoxicating concoction of its raucous, then soothing, then raucous bluegrass-Indie-folk rock mix in a no-holds-barred, two-hour performance that had the audience on its feet and revved from start to finish.
Led by Marcus Mumford, one of three of the original 2006 members, the well-loved group had up to nine musicians on the stage at a time, including talented charter members Ben Lovett on keyboards and piano and Ted Dwane on guitar, upright bass and electric guitar. A dynamic, three-person horns section accompanied them at times for added intensity and periodically morphed into a percussion section, playing sticks and more. Next to the drum set, Matt Menafee alternated between animated banjo picking and guitar, taking the place of longtime banjoist Winston Marshall, who left the group in 2021.
Indeed, there was no lack of musical versatility on anybody’s part Saturday. Lead singer Mumford primarily played acoustic guitar front and center but switched to electric guitar for some powerful numbers later in the show and pounded on the drums with amazing intensity as he belted out vocals for at least two selections.
Looking lean Saturday night, Mumford could be deemed the poster child for the band’s unflagging and almost unfathomable energy, which electrified the crowd. A little more than halfway through the show, after the song “Ditmas,” Mumford suddenly ran off the front of the stage, up the left aisle and around the back of the amphitheater, stopping briefly to interact in the lawn seats before returning to the stage via one of the righthand aisles. He then bounded up on a platform with a fist raised, and the crowd went wild.
“We f—in’ love you, Saratoga,” he shouted into the mic at one point to the audience’s delight.
“Delight” is an understatement. The overall youngish crowd, with perhaps a median age range from late 20s to mid-50s, jumped, swayed, bobbed, cheered, clapped and sang along with their favorites throughout the show. Often they had their hands in the air and phones up to videotape the energy pulsing from the stage.
The band’s trademark harmonies came into play from the get-go in “Rushmere,” the title cut from their new album, as well as in such beloved standards as “Little Lion Man.” There, the audience responded by joining in a near-deafening chorus of “It’s not your fault, but mine, and it was your heart on the line, I really f—ed it up this time, didn’t I, my dear?” in between the band’s finger-blistering instrumental interludes.
Mumford & Sons repeatedly demonstrated a symbiosis with their fans: the band fed off the audience’s energy and vice versa, and all were swept into a near reverie when the energy peaked, which was often.
Fans Saturday night were sucked into this palpable adrenaline rush with the pounding rhythms and harsh imagery of “Babel” as Mumford coaxed them to sing along and keyboardist Lovett was fairly marching or running in place by the end of the number.
Band followers were lured in again a song later with the aching refrain of “my whole heart” in “White Blank Page” as Mumford sang slowly and softly for the lead-in, then the band hit the first crescendo with an instrumental blitzkrieg, backed off and the sound mounted again for the next mournful chorus. Mumford threw in a few Celtic touches such as a whoop and a stomp and leaned forward over his guitar during the instrumental climaxes. At the same time, Lovett’s and Dwane’s expressions were twisted into near grimaces with the intensity of their playing, a blend of effort and exultation.
Several numbers into the set of recent and old favorites, Mumford announced, “Luckily, we did more than write 10 songs in six years, and we’re gonna bring out Gigi Perez for a new one.”
The new one turned out to be the as-yet unreleased “Icarus.”
Earlier in the evening, Perez opened for the band with a solid 45-minute set during which she crooned solo accompanied by strong percussion, guitar and bass guitar provided by her three band mates. Arguably, her work showed Mumford & Sons’ influence, sharing their knack for spiritually-tinged yet conflict-ridden lyrics and a quiet then surging vocal and strumming style. She added her own branding, however, by changing guitars and her voice frequently and extending “ooh” and “oh” phrasing that rose and dipped on the music scale.
Perez participated in a second song, a thundering rendition of “Awake my Soul,” which featured a vibrant banjo solo and swelled from a soft duet between Mumford and Perez into five-part harmonies that grew louder and fuller as the instrumentation seemed to go on steroids. The audience swooned with an impassioned refrain of “awake my soul.” I could literally feel a thumping vibration in my seat in row J.
On stage for “Icarus,” Perez joined Mumford & Sons’ five-part harmonies for such poetic, soulful lyrics as, “She’ll never see the boy falling from the sky,” and “I was burned by the morning…I got too close to the sun.”
The band switched to a more electric, rock sound with “Truth,” leading in with strong percussive rhythms on sticks and bongos and adding electric guitar. Pyrotechnics aptly were projected on the backdrop as Mumford repeated the lyric, “There’s a fire in the almost places” in his raw vocal style.
Throughout the show, the audience was clearly having a good time. A spontaneous beachball game broke out in the front section early on. Late in the show, concert goers were worked into a near frenzy by the throbbing, full-bodied instrumentation of horns, banjo, guitar, piano and upright bass in “I Will Wait.” Hundreds, if not thousands, jumped and sang in a unified, boisterous final chorus: “I will wait. I will wait for you.”
Mumford took a second turn on the drums for the final number, “Dust Bowl Dance,” pounding out measured, stark beats while electric guitars whined and a blur of staccato, black and white images of the band flashed on the backdrop.
To close the song’s dark narrative, Mumford scrambled down from the back drum deck over a row of spotlights before slowing the tempo for an almost spoken, bluesy ending: “I know what I’ve done, ‘cause I know what I’ve seen. I went out back and I got my gun. I said, “You haven’t seen me, I am the only son.”
As in most shows, endings aren’t really endings, and Mumford & Sons were generous with the encores, weaving several songs together, including “Timshel,” “Reminder” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” with just the three original band members’ singing harmonies around a single microphone, accompanied by a single guitar.
“I have to say, for Americans, that sounds pretty well,” Mumford joked after cheers broke out during Timeshel. The crowd erupted in laughter and started an impromptu chant of “USA, USA!,” bringing an appreciative, if impish, smile to Mumford’s face.
“I’m really having a nice time,” he beamed at the end of “Reminder.” “Especially since it’s in the great state of New York,” he said, segueing to “The Boxer,” which takes place in New York City.
The crowd cheered its approval and joined the trio for a robust chorus of “lie-de-lies” at the end of the tune.
Characteristically, after slowing things down finitely, the band came back with a vengeance, raising the musical voltage against a backdrop of falling sparks for “The Wolf,” lowering the tempo and volume briefly, then gearing up to a full jam with their heads wagging and Mumford laughing toward the conclusion of “The Cave.”
Among their many musical gifts, perhaps the most striking is Mumford & Sons’ ability to connect with their audience. The group can re-energize its listeners over and over, bringing them up from the depths of melancholy lyrics and throwing them in the air with the force of passionate, rich instrumentation – and the joy and power of connection.
I, for one, am glad to have been launched into the air by this band’s spirit. The fall back down is tolerable because you know they’ll have you soaring again soon.
Mumford & Sons – SPAC – Saturday, June 21, 2025
Setlist: Rushmere, Caroline, Little Lion Man, Babel, White Blank Page, Lover of the Light, Where it Belongs, Ghosts That We Knew, Icarus (w/Gigi Perez), Awake My Soul (w/Gigi Perez), Believe, Truth, Ditmas, I Will Wait, Dust Bowl Dance
Encore: Timshel, Reminder, The Boxer, Slip Away, Delta, The Wolf, The Cave
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