The Mumford & Sons concert on June 16, 2016 was awesome.

Everything about the atmosphere was cool and authentic and heart-warming. I saw many couples dancing like they were in the Titanic and people were holding their beers up to the sky and howling like wolves. The location itself, Forest Hills Stadium, is big enough to feel detached from the performance, but the band created an environment which made me feel the same while touching the stage and in the last and highest row.

The band themselves are the defining act of the past few years' folk revival and are thriving in their 2016 summer concert series, “An Arrow Through the Heartland.” There newest mini-album Johannesburg (release June 17, 2016) made a debut at the concert (on June 16^th) with a special performance of one of the guest vocalists, Baaba Maal. Baaba Maal and another African collaborator, a pop group named Beatenberg, gives the album an untraditional rhythm. The album has mixed reviews, but in concert, the sounds of Baaba Maal and the band are unforgettable. The music soared through my ears straight to my heart; I felt a constant thump of a drum as Maal shouted to the heavens.

The sounds of concert were perfectly executed with the lighting design. While hard-hitting songs were represented in reds and oranges, calmer and more thought-provoking songs were shown through blues and purples. The audience of the concert itself, really made the lighting design, come to life. Their, or in some sense “our”, usage of the flashlight app is usually just a classic concert touch. But somehow, the sustained gesture was different then usual and more so represented a congregated feeling of warmth and light-heartedness. The fans of Mumford & Sons represented the music. Real. As Mumford & Sons sing, “So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light.”

The opening act for the band was a 20-year old free spirit who went by the name of Rory. He jumped a lot, but kind of in a way that made you want to jump too. He wore a Rolling Stones t-shirt that he cut holes in the arm pits – new trend? In broad daylight, Rory did a good job to make the slightly buzzed audience feel welcomed. His age though, prominently stood out by his tiny-jumping body. Rory preached for the new generation stating, “the young minds that can’t be told no.” A decent and almost inspirational first act.

All in all, the Mumford & Sons concert was great- I would defiantly recommend it to anyone who appreciates not-so-radio like music. Their usage of many instruments (acoustic guitar, drums, keyboard instruments, bass guitar, and traditional folk instruments such as banjo, mandolin and resonator guitar) was proven to provide an overall better concert. The band made you want to jump with both hands up during “Babel” and close your eyes and remember the moment forever during “Believe.”