Look, if you'd told someone in 2009 that the blokes playing banjo in a tiny London pub would end up headlining arenas worldwide, they'd have spat out their pint.
But here we are, 17 years deep, and Mumford & Sons are still filling rooms the size of aircraft hangars with singalongs so loud they’d register on seismographs.
The current lineup runs as a three-piece, with plenty of live flourish including their own horn section. Marcus Mumford is the engine room — lead vocals, acoustic and electric guitar, drums, mandolin, tambourine and whatever else happens to be within arm’s reach.
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Ben Lovett commands a small empire of keys: Hammond organ, Mellotron, piano, synths, all while pitching in on vocals. Ted Dwane anchors everything from below on upright and electric bass, occasionally picking up a guitar and lending his voice too. Since Winston Marshall’s departure in 2021, the trio has redistributed his former banjo and lead guitar duties amongst themselves, and on Prizefighter, co-producer Aaron Dessner from The National effectively stepped in as a fourth member behind the desk.
The group coalesced in the mid-2000s around loose jam nights at a small London venue, where the eventual members backed singer-songwriter Laura Marling in various shifting combinations. They self-financed their 2009 debut Sigh No More with producer Markus Dravs, and the thing detonated — a Brit Award, global chart domination, the works. Babel followed in 2012 and nabbed the Grammy for Album of the Year. Two more records steered into amplified, synth-laden territory before a lengthy quiet patch, broken in 2025 by the Dave Cobb-produced Rushmere, which went straight to number one in the UK.
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Prizefighter landed barely seven months later — a blistering turnaround for a band that previously took years between releases. The entire sixth album was written and tracked in just ten days at Dessner’s Long Pond facility in upstate New York, with the producer playing acoustic and electric guitar, synth, banjo, drums, piano and Mellotron across the record. Vocal contributions from Hozier, Gracie Abrams, Chris Stapleton and Gigi Perez round out what feels like the band’s most collaborative effort yet.
And then there’s the live show, which is a different beast entirely. At Rod Laver Arena last night, they opened by launching into Here and Babel, spanning the full catalogue from the jump. I Will Wait and White Blank Page dug right back to the early material, while the title track and Rushmere gave the newer songs their moment. The mid-set stretch through Believe, Truth and Stay showcased the band’s more restrained, textured side, all atmosphere and patience, before The Cave and Awake My Soul blew the roof off with the kind of mass singalong energy that’s basically their superpower.
A B-stage segment stripped things right back — a bluegrass take on Timshel, the Prizefighter deep cut I’ll Tell You Everything, and the Hozier collaboration Rubber Band Man, which sounded enormous even in its more intimate setting. The encore rolled through Delta, The Banjo Song and the inevitable Little Lion Man, before wrapping with Conversation With My Son. Twenty-six songs across six albums. Not a bad night’s work.
Where the studio recordings on Prizefighter lean into Dessner’s layered, atmospheric production — all texture and careful arrangement — the live show keeps that stomping, communal intensity that first built their audience. That push and pull between polish and raw energy is still the thing that makes them tick, and on this evidence, the engine’s running hotter than it has in years.
Grab tickets to the remaining shows here.
