Mumford and Sons, and the scramble to find the venue

Last Saturday, I went to see Mumford and Sons in Toronto. It was a great show (some notes follow below), and I also learned that there is a big difference between Rogers Centre and Rogers Stadium.

If you’re like me, you may not have known that Toronto, yep, has such a thing as Rogers Stadium. It is very much not (despite what a quick Google Maps search told me) Rogers Centre, a.k.a. the old SkyDome.

I bought the tickets weeks ago, and evidently did not notice the difference. So, when I walked down to the stadium early Saturday evening, I was struck by how … quiet everything was. Like, the place was nearly empty. And, as I found out, Mumford and Sons were not playing there at all.

So, it turns out Rogers Stadium is a temporary facility on an airstrip in North York. It’s a new thing on the Toronto entertainment scene, and I turn out to be far from the only person confused by it. In a panic, I asked a cab parked outside to get me to the show on time (I got there in time for the last song by opener Caamp), and learned from the helpful driver that his profession has been carting people to the soundalike venue regularly. Like, really regularly: he pointed to a cab just ahead of us and said the passengers were in the same boat.

It also turns out a cab is a really expensive way to get there. The TTC sends a northbound Yonge subway right to the venue. Whatever. Learned my lesson. I realized later that I had been sent an email with directions to Rogers Stadium … it was nestled in an email folder where promotions and ads go. Completely missed it.

Anyhoo. As a friend says, “all good for the novel.”

As for the concert, it was tremendous. Marcus Mumford — who turned out to be swearier than I expected, but should not have been that surprised — described this as the band’s “first balls-out stadium tour,” and they came prepared for a show to match the size.

It’s a remarkable path for a band that, when we first saw them, would look right in place at folk night at your favourite pub — which is of course how they got started. Now a trio, they tour with a full complement of backing musicians, including a terrific horn section.

This tour supports Prizefighter, their sixth album and the second in the last couple of years. (It’s quite a good record.) Playing arenas now, the Mumford setlists (you can track them here) have been favouring not just a good heap of the new stuff, but a healthy run through the catalogue, too. Here is the Toronto setlist.

One of the recurring bits Marcus Mumford has been doing on the arena tour is a running rendition of Ditmas. By running, I mean literal running: he takes off into the crowd. In Toronto, he did a considerable circuit of the arena, climbing up section dividers and then sprinting around the floor crowd (that’s where I was) with the help of roadies. A great stunt, and the audience ate it up.

Mumford and Sons songs typically have a way of starting slowly and quietly, and finishing strong. A back-to-back combination that really worked up the crowd, and divided the concert into sections, were renditions of Delta (one of my own favourites) and The Wolf.

After that one-two punch another surprise for the crowd, and a quiet twist the band has been doing throughout the tour. The musicians left the main stage, and I saw people leave the arena. There was, however, much more to come.

First, a la Ditmas, the core band (with collaborator Rob Moose) bolted along a corridor along the floor, and set up camp at what the tour is calling the B Stage. This is all for an acoustic-only set.

It was refreshing, and in Toronto there was a treat: a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer, which seems an obvious complement to the new Prizefighter album. What a singalong that was; I had never before heard tens of thousands of people sing the “lie-la-lie” chorus together.

The concert finished — you could call it an encore, given the steady applause throughout the venue as the band ran back to the stage — with three songs: Rushmere, from last year; The Banjo Song, a standout on the new album; and naturally I Will Wait, as close to an anthem that Mumford and Sons has in its warehouse. A massive crowd on the floor was hopping and dancing together for the final minutes. I know, because I was one of them.

The tour usually finishes with another song: Conversation with My Son (Gangsters & Angels), but the band had to cut that one short in Toronto, in order to meet the dictates of a city curfew. Oh well.

Just as well: tens of thousands of people flooded out at once to catch the last GO train and other public transit; I was in that number, too, cramming myself into an exceptionally crowded subway car. Four overlapping conversations around me were the stuff short stories are made of. (My favourite: the drunk teens. They never change!)

It was a hassle getting to the show, but so very worth it.

A lesson: double-check, triple-check the venue. Especially if it’s in a city where a corporate conglomerate has doubled up on the use of its name.