The room is already full before a note is played. Qudos Bank Arena hums with the kind of anticipation reserved for bands who have outlived trends, backlash cycles and the constant churn of what’s meant to matter now. Mumford & Sons walk into that space not as revivalists, but as a band still writing their own continuation.
Above it all, fairy lights hang across the arena, soft and flickering during the show, giving the impression you are at a country fair rather than inside one of the biggest venues in Sydney. It immediately shifts the scale of the room, making something vast feel strangely intimate.
Before the headliners, the night builds carefully. Hudson Freeman opens with a set that leans into melody and restraint, his songs carrying a quiet confidence that suggests something more is coming.
Folk Bitch Trio follow, threading harmony and tension together in a way that feels rooted yet restless, the kind of support slot that quietly wins the room over.
By the time Mumford & Sons arrive, the scale shifts again. Not louder, necessarily, but broader. There’s a sense of accumulated history in the air, the weight of a band that moved from West London clubs to festival headliners, from Sigh No More to Babel and beyond, shaping a version of modern folk that became impossible to ignore.
At the centre of it all are the three core members who continue to define the band’s sound: Marcus Mumford (vocals, guitar, drums, banjo, mandolin), Ben Lovett (piano, keyboards, backing vocals) and Ted Dwane (double bass, bass guitar, guitar, drums, backing vocals). Between them, there’s a constant sense of movement, instruments shifting hands, roles blurring, the music never quite sitting still.
What’s striking now is how little they lean on nostalgia. Prizefighter, released earlier this year, lands in the wake of 2025’s Rushmere, with the band clearly in a particularly prolific phase. Co-produced with Aaron Dessner, Prizefighter signals a group still interested in evolution rather than preservation, pushing forward with a sense of urgency that feels earned.
There’s a lot of love in this room tonight — from Mumford to the audience and from the audience back to the band. I have never seen Mumford & Sons live before, and the intensity of that emotion blows me away.
They don’t hold back. By song three, they leap straight into ‘I Will Wait’, with Mumford admitting they don’t know when they will be back and they don’t want to fuck around. It lands exactly how it should — urgent, immediate, and sung back word for word by a crowd that has clearly been waiting for it.
A girl next to me is dancing wildly, completely lost in it. She spills her drink on the people around her, but no one minds. That’s the love in this room you see. It’s messy, unfiltered and completely shared.
‘Badlands’ becomes one of the night’s most special moments, with Gretta Ray brought onstage to perform with them, adding another layer to a song that already feels expansive.
‘Believe’ is the one that really gets the girl next to me on her feet again, moving without hesitation, completely immersed in it. The song builds steadily, drawing people deeper rather than pushing them back.
‘Truth’ is delivered full blast, driven by sharp, cutting lighting that slices through the arena and amplifies the intensity.
‘Stay’ stretches out into an amazing ending, the huge guitars ringing out and filling every corner of the room, lingering just long enough to feel almost overwhelming.
During ‘Ditmas’, Mumford leaves the stage and heads into the crowd, disappearing into a sea of outstretched hands. People reach out just to touch him, to be part of it, however briefly.
By the time ‘The Cave’ arrives, everyone is on their feet. It is amazing to see this arena, which is so vast, feel so united in that moment.
Midway through, the band move to a B-stage in the middle of the crowd for ‘I’ll Tell You Everything’, ‘Rubber Band Man’ and ‘Ghosts’, before returning to the main stage. The shift brings everything closer, tightening the connection between band and audience even further.
They close with an encore of ‘Delta’, ‘Banjo Song’, ‘Little Lion Man’ and ‘Conversation’, carrying that same shared energy through to the end.
What stays with you isn’t just the songs. It’s the feeling in the room. In a space this big, that kind of connection shouldn’t be possible.
Tonight, it is.
Images Deb Pelser
