By: Michelle Hershberger

When I heard Mumford and Sons would be at ACL, my senior year of high school self was screaming inside. I remember when my idyllic vision of Mumford and Sons was crushed when I read a tweet from one of my classmates which said all of their songs sounded the same. In fact, the classmate wondered if the 2012 release of Babel should really called a re-release of their 2009 Sigh No More. It was one of those comments that at once offended me because I loved their sound so much but also seemed accurate. This long soliloquy is to say I was looking forward to seeing a band I once loved a few years later and to find out if the re-release comment would apply to their 2015 Wilder Mind.

Overall, I thought the show was good. There was strong energy from the crowd surrounding their staples like “Little Lion Man” and their 2010 single “The Cave.” Another big hit was “I Will Wait,” the song before their closer which sounded as nice as it does on the CD.

From “Awake My Soul,” the lyric, “In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die,” seemed particularly relevant to everyone who had been at ACL for the entire event and had lived through heat and cloudless sky earlier in the day.

The most memorable part of the show came before closing on “The Wolf” from Mumford and Sons new album when lead singer Marcum Mumford warned, “We love your country. Don’t f**k it up.” Touche.

As for the evolution of Mumford and Sons’ sound, I would say the haunting tweet from high school still stands. The sound that made Mumford and Sons famous is still stunning but the same as what they already have out there. I did enjoy their pseudo reinvention of their sound with a few synthesizers and electric guitars with their latest album. Mostly, I was amazed they still sound the same. Though at the time of the show, I do admit I was once again the screaming high school devotee.