Much like the Spurs, Mumford & Sons still have a lot of fight left | Review
The San Antonio Spurs beat the New York Knicks 115-111 in Game 3 of the NBA Finals Monday night. It wasn’t the outcome Marcus Mumford was hoping for.
“I’m afraid we’re all rooting for the Knicks up here,” the Mumford & Sons frontman said from the Dickies Arena stage after two songs.
It wouldn’t be the last time the stage banter turned to sports that night. Speaking of the upcoming World Cup matches at Dallas Stadium, Mumford apologized for how rowdy the England away fans were going to be — “They are genuine [expletives],” he said, using one of Roy Kent’s favorite British swear words — and mentioned the band made their new management promise not to double-book them during any England World Cup matches. (Speaking of Kent, the band did not play the “Ted Lasso” theme song, which Mumford wrote.)
The English folk rock band’s first-ever night out in Fort Worth contained much more than soccer or basketball talk, but the sporting discussion was appropriate. The trio — Mumford, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane — were at Dickies Arena for a stop on their Prizefighter tour, promoting their new album of the same name. A stage adorned with a grid of gold logos and a circular ring that doubled as a screen lowered from the rafters made the set look like a boxing ring.
And, much like the Spurs, fans shouldn’t count Mumford & Sons out just yet.
Mumford & Sons weren’t the first band to tap into an earnest brand of folk rock, but they certainly became the face of the genre in the 2010s. It’s become trendy as of late to hate on that earnestness. But the genre is having a bit of a revival, with newer artists like Noah Kahan taking up the mantle. Call me sentimental, but there was something spiritual about hearing a crowd of nearly 14,000 people singing the words “And I’ll find strength in pain/And I will change my ways/I’ll know my name as it’s called again” in unison Monday night.
Mumford & Sons’ two-hour, 25-song setlist pulled heavily from their new album and their 2009 debut “Sigh No More,” which skyrocketed them into fame in the early 2010s. The near-capacity crowd knew every word to standards like “Little Lion Man” and “The Cave,” and even new songs like “Here” and “Rubber Band Man.”
Continuing the sports metaphor, the trio and their backing band treated the stage like a basketball court or soccer pitch, with some additional horns and bassists playing off of each other like a seasoned team. Mumford enjoyed a chance to run across the arena to the lower-deck seats on “Ditmas,” not missing a beat.
The main trio also moved locations to a second, smaller stage in the back of the arena. This portion of the show focused on acoustic versions of songs like “Timshel” and “Ghosts That We Knew.” When the Spurs won, a fan called out “Knicks lost!” during the acoustic set. “You’re a wanker, you are!” Mumford joked while singing. Like any good captain or frontman, Mumford knows when to adjust on the fly.
And the group has had to adjust a few times over the course of its career. “Wilder Mind” shifted the band’s sound to a more electric mix, and 2021 saw the departure of banjo player Winston Marshall. "Prizefighter” showcases them back in fighting form. They’re nothing if not consistently great at what they do, which is earnest, arena-sized folk rock distilled in a way that sounds like it was meant for you personally.
We need that earnestness now more than ever. And you can always count on Mumford & Sons to deliver on that front.
MUMFORD & SONS SETLIST, DICKIES ARENA, FORT WORTH TEXAS (JUNE 8, 2026)
- Run Together
- Babel
- Little Lion Man
- White Blank Page
- Awake My Soul
- Lover of the Light
- Prizefighter
- Badlands
- Believe
- Truth
- Ditmas
- The Cave
- Roll Away Your Stone
- Here
- Rubber Band Man
- Delta
- The Wolf
- Timshel (Acoustic, played from a smaller stage)
- Reminder (Acoustic, played from a smaller stage)
- Ghosts That We Knew (Acoustic, played from a smaller stage)
- Guiding Light (Acoustic, played from a smaller stage)
- Rushmere
- The Banjo Song
- I Will Wait
- Conversation With My Son (Gangsters & Angels)
