[Our fearless team, Nicci Boots and Ian McNeil spent three days listening to an obscene amount of fantastic music above the stunning Columbia River Gorge in George, Washington. Check out all our coverage here, over 30 sets from a who's who list of indie music.]
I was pretty psyched to see Mumford & Sons, even though the lead’s voice reminds me of a cross between two of my least favorite singers, Dave Matthews and Michael Stipe. They started the show with a slow and mysterious collection of instrumentation, and the vibrant, fast-paced payoff at the end of the built-up hype was well appreciated by the loving crowd. And a loving crowd it was – everyone hunkered around the Bigfoot stage for this show jumped and screamed like they’d been following Mumford & Sons for years, which is unlikely considering the band hasn’t been around for very long. I do give credit to the group in that they’ve got a really uplifting beat that feels both new and old, but it’s frustrating that so many of their songs sound the same. Props to the use of the upright bass, though, and the production of a sound that felt Celtic and bad-ass.
