Mumford and Sons Delta Tour in Basel

Kekoas Korner got to travel to Basel to see Mumford and Sons at St. Jakobshalle on Sunday. I’ve never been to the venue and I have never seen them live so I was pretty excited. I heard only great things about their live performances and I’ve seen them on TV a few times so I was expecting a lot. Surprisingly the stage on the Delta Tour was set in the middle of venue which I already liked. So here’s a little more how the evening went:

Gang of Youths got the moves

The support act Gang of Youths is an Australian indie rock band from Sydney. Unfortunately I was quite distracted because I couldn’t find my phone and I thought I’d lost it. However, silly me, I put in my boots just minutes ago – which I always do when I have my boots on but I completely forgot. So the first 3 songs were kind of a blur. After huge waves of relief were flooding through me I could finally focus on Gang of Youths. Oh boy, David – the lead singer – can dance. Those moving hips were another distraction. He looked like the dancers on Let’s Dance Germany haha

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So yeah I’d say the lads were quite entertaining but I couldn’t find a way to their music. But I saw so many loving their music which was really nice to see because they totally deserved it 🙂 They gave their best for us and deserved all the credit they got.

Mumford and Sons Little Lion Man

After a 40mins break and little quarrel with some very rude people around me the lights went dark. Honestly some people just don’t know how to behave at a gig. If you are late, you are late and squeezing yourself in little space not minding others people’s space is not OK. Especially if they don’t even know/care that they are in the wrong and call you names. I was pretty close to calling security. So that was that. Again it was real hard to focus on the actually nice evening with good music.

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Mumford and Sons started with a ballade “Guiding Light” into the evening. A very pretty song from the new record Delta. But it was “Little Lion Man” that took my heart. Hearing the song live was so special. The four lads and their amazing band performed it brilliantly and it was over waay too quickly. “Holland Road”, “The Cave”, “Beloved”, “Lover of the light”, “Tompkins Square Park” followed. After a while I realised that Marcus – the lead singer – never really interacted with the other three guys in the band. He never played with them or talked to them and he was always on the other side of the stage. This might have been because the stage was in the middle so they wanted to keep all the fans happy and switch sides. But to me it kinda interrupted the band play which I thought was such a pity.

Let’s talk footy!

A very beautiful highlight of the evening was the song “Believe” during which the whole venue got their lights out. It looks incredible because the lights were all around the stage with the band in the middle. Marcus then talked about footy. Now we’re talking! 😀 However I quickly realised that all of them support the wrong teams haha He mentioned that Arsenal and the Mancs had a pretty bad day both drew that day and that only the Chelsea supporter had a good day with them winning 3-0 at home. He then realised that he’s in Switzerland and most of us don’t have a clue what he’s actually talking about. But anyways why he was telling us this is that basically almost all of their songs are about football! Who knew! 😀

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During “Ditmas” Marcus came off stage and ran across the venue – way up top to the cheap seats and back down again. A party through and through. “Slip Away” and “Picture you” were next. Now I really loved “Darkness Visible”. Suddenly the stage was filled with thick smoke and laser lights were used to showcase the flow of the smoke. It looked incredible! The creative director of the tour did an amazing job here! “The Wolf” was the last song before the band left the stage for the encore after just around an hour.

Back to the roots

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The four boys came back on stage and gathered around a mic. With one guitar and four voices they performed “Cold Arms”, “White blank page” and “Forever”. It was beautiful! The harmonies and the voices matched perfectly and Mumford and Sons can deffo do slow songs. After this the whole band and Gang of Youths came back on stage to perform a Middle East cover called “Blood”. It was full of energy and a moment to remember. “Awake my Soul” followed this cool moment before the band brought out their banjos again. The folk was back with “I Will Wait”. The band’s Uber hit and literally everyone was standing now and singing along and dancing a lot to this song. With the title track to their new record “Delta” they said Goodbye.

Mumford and Sons changed their music over the years and the folky part got a little lost. The part that I loved. Compared to what I’ve heard and what I saw on TV I was expecting a little more however I spoke to many fans and they did love the show. The four british lads are super talented musicians and I am hoping that they will go back to their roots a bit.