The English folk-rock band Mumford & Sons delivered an energetic and entertaining 3rd appearance of fire, grace and sing-a-long redemption at Madison Square Garden this August 11-13, 2026 with a 3-night sold-out run that formed a part of their 24-date Prizefighter Tour across North America.
Prizefighter (Island Records/Gentlemen of the Road), their 6th studio album, was released this past February. Its 16 tracks include “Here” with Chris Stapleton, the anthemic, banjo-inflected single, “Rubber Band Man” featuring Hozier, “Icarus,” gorgeously paired with Gigi Perez, and the gentle ballad of “Badlands” with Gracie Abrams. The album’s tracks explore the themes of love and regret while reaching for grace and redemption.
Medium Build (indie-folk pop singer-songwiter Nick Carpenter) opened the show, though I unfortunately missed it.
Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwayne entertained the 20,000-plus crowd with their incredibly versatile musicianship across a two-hour long, 22-song set driven by the guitar, drums, keyboards, upright bass and banjo, accompanied by additional trombonists and trumpet players. Rob Moose, a Manhattan School of Music grad and member of Bon Iver and Antony and the Johnsons fame, joined them on violin.
The mood swung between joyful, elegiacal and intense, true to Mumford & Sons beautiful harmonised, raw, earnest and uplifting songs. The crowd knew every lyric by heart, so much so that Marcus Mumford barely had to sing the opening numbers himself as he held out his mic again and again for the audience to fill-in-the-blanks. The band was completely at ease, in-the-pocket and locked in onstage. What a thrill for them to experience that kind of love reflected back from the audience. During the song “Ditmas,” Marcus sprinted along the full length of the arena and bounded up into the 100th row to the delight of concert goers before he made his way back to the ground floor and somersaulted onto the main stage.
Stella Lefty, country pop singer from Glencoe, Illinois, joined the stage to sing her hit single, Boston, an interpolation of “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan. Mumford announced it was Lefty’s 24th birthday, and after her joyfully expressed “Boston,” the band followed with “Here,” a deeply confessional track from Prizefighter.
Overhead, string lights canopied the arena ceiling, pulsing and billowing like the sails of a galleon set asea.
Their high octane numbers, “Run Together” and “Truth” exploded into dazzling, if a little dizzying and visually overwhelming G-Flame pyrotechnics. For those curious, G-Flame pyrotechnics (short for generic flame projector) are a cold flame device that uses a gaseous or liquid fuel to ignite by an electronic match, operating below 150-degrees celsius to create coloured sparks up to 11.5 feet whilst offering visual impact without fire, heat or noise. Traditional fireworks, by contrast, exceed 1,200-degrees celsius and require permits and heavy safety precautions whereas G-Flames are permit-free, smoke-free and carry minimal safety risk. It’s striking in small doses, but I must confess at one point the strobing grew so intense I had to close my eyes and cover them with my hands. “The Wolf,” thrummed along boisterously with impressive waterfall sparks and flashlamps.
The band regrouped on the B stage where Marcus urged the audience in delightfully frank New York-ese to quiet down before easing into their sweetly melodic and introspective “Clover.” The audience lost its restraint and broke into full voice for their rendition of Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire,” from his Badlands album.
Returning to the main stage, the band delivered a rousing encore of “Conversation With My Son,” “The Banjo Song,” “I Will Wait,” and “Son of a Preacher Man.”
It was an unfailingly feel-good show—catch one of their tour dates if you can! https://www.mumfordandsons.com/tour/
Full Setlist
The Wild,
Run Together
Little Lion Man
Rubber Band Man
White Blank Page
Awake My Soul
Lover of the Light
Hopeless Wanderer
Alleycat
Prizefighter
Begin Again,
Believe
Truth
Ditmas
The Cave
Boston
Here
The Wolf
B Stage, acoustic set:
Clover
I’m on Fire – Springsteen from his Badlands album.
Thank you to the Mumford management team for the invite!
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