“I’m gonna be straight with you,” MC Taylor told Tampa as fans streamed slowly onto the floor at Amalie Arena. “There’s no wall that’s gonna get built.”
The Hiss Golden Messenger frontman was pretty forward before playing “When The Wall Comes Down,” a song from his forthcoming Merge Records release (Hallelujah Anyhow, due tomorrow). He went on to talk about the duty of young people to make sure our president’s promised wall along the Mexico-U.S. border doesn’t get built (“I’m on the older side of young,” Taylor explained), and it was a bold move from an even bolder opening set of resistance-ready, muscle-bound folk rock by the North Carolina band.
The song and its sentiment were noteworthy on Wednesday night, however, as a different group of foreigners — England’s Mumford & Sons — invaded the Bay area for its first-ever show in the area.
“It only took us 10 years," frontman Marcus Mumford told an announced crowd of more than 12,800, "but there's nowhere else we'd rather be."
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Playlist: Listen to every song Mumford & Sons played at Tampa's Amalie Arena on September 20, 2017
The quartet — whose 2009 release Sigh No More breathed new life into a still re-emerging Americana landscape — proved it, too. Sure, things have changed in the world Mumford & Sons operates in; high-quality, flannel-clad, banjo-picking rock acts with arena ambitions are more than a dime a dozen. And while close to none have risen to the space Mumford & co. occupy, the abundance of wide-brimmed hats, perfectly rolled jeans and scuffed-just-right leather boots made it clear that sing-songy, anthemic Americana and the culture it has cultivated are here to stay.
That doesn’t mean Mumford’s song is a tired one though. Quite the contrary actually. At almost a decade old, songs like “The Cave” and “Sigh No More” still pack all the melodic power they did when the U.S. was watching a guy named Barack Obama settle into The White House. “Little Lion Man” — with all of its hyperactive strumming, exaggerated alliteration and raucous cussing — could still punch the lights out at any packed pub in the world, and “Timshel” — which the band did from a pop up stage near the rear of the arena — is still the kind of quiet tune that even the toughest of blokes would shed a tear to while learning on his guitar.
The show also got a major boost from extra instrumentation (fiddle, a two-part horn section, keys), but the biggest lift came from Mumford, just 30 years old, who more than knows his way around the stage and drum kit (as evidenced by a fine performance on the skins for “Dust Bowl Dance” and Babel-era “Lover of the Light”). He even took a lap around the lower bowl of Amalie for a take on “Ditmas.” The track — a phoned-in moment on the band’s latest studio effort, Wilder Mind — could’ve been a lull in an otherwise energetic 18-song set, but that athletic move (it’s tough to get around the arena, up and down steps like that so quickly) was more than enough to keep things rolling into an encore that included a new song (“If I Say”) and crowd-favorite “The Wolf.”
Still, for all the wide-mouthed shouting and squinty-eyed screeches, Mumford & Sons make the Queen proudest on candlelit ballads like “Ghosts That We Knew” where Mumford’s protagonist is soaking in the rain, broken and looking for the promise of peace.
“Hold me still bury my heart on the cold,” Mumford sang as the fiddle cried in the background. “So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light...just promise me that we'll be alright.”
The revelry of rowdier cuts may have left fans with wide grins and a workout, but Mumford & Sons was made to pierce a hole in your chest. “Ghost” unfurled into “Where Are You Now” and “Awake My Soul” last night. On the latter, Mumford is disoriented once again and wanting to leave his body.
“In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die,” he sings.
Fans lived for all Mumford & Sons wanted to give them for nearly 90-minutes last night, and they just might die if the band waits another decade to barge its way onto our shores again.
See more photos from the show below and listen to a playlist featuring songs from the set here.
Setlist
Snake Eyes
Little Lion Man
Holland Road
Roll Away Your Stone
Lover of the Light
Tompkins Square Park
Believe
Blind Leading the Blind
Ghosts That We Knew
Where Are You Now
Awake My Soul
The Cave
Ditmas
Dust Bowl Dance
—
Timshel
If I Say
I Will Wait
The Wolf
