Mumford & Sons Begin U.S. Tour in Hoboken

By JAMES MCKINLEY, JR.

Mumford & Sons kicked off a month-long American tour on Wednesday night with an outdoor concert in Hoboken, providing thrills for more than 15,000 people who crowded into Pier A Park to hear the English folk rockers.

It was the first time a major rock concert had been held in the park, which was built on an old pier near the Path Station and has views of the Manhattan skyline, city officials said. The skyscrapers across the river were bathed in rosy light and a rainbow appeared in the stormy sky just before the band took the stage and launched into “Lover's Eyes,” an anthemic song off their long-anticipated second studio album, “Babel,” (Glassnote) which is slated to be released next month.

“We are very, very happy to be playing our first ever gig in New Jersey,” the band's lead singer, Marcus Mumford, said when the cheering for the opening number had died down. “That was quite a sunset.”

The concert was the first of 16 shows the band will play in small American cities and towns this month, places like Laramie, Wyo., Bristol, Tenn., and Dixon, Ill. That the band chose to perform an outdoor concert at an untested site in Hoboken rather than one of the city's big arenas reflects the band's unconventional touring philosophy.

“We kind of picked somewhere that hasn't been used before as a gig venue,” Ben Lovett, the keyboard player and singer, told the crowd during a break between songs. “We hope it's working well for you. It's working well for us.”

City officials said Hoboken will receive $2 for every ticket sold to pay for free concerts and events â€" roughly $30,000. About 3,000 tickets were set aside for Hoboken residents. The $55 tickets sold out within a day of going on sale.

Mumford and Sons â€" who are perhaps best known for the 2010 hit single “The Cave” â€" came out of London's underground folk scene, and their music has a hard-driving sound that harkens back to groups like the Waterboys and the Pogues.

A quartet, they favor simple anthemic melodies delivered with strong three- and four-part harmonies over bluegrass and march-time rhythms that Mr. Mumford holds together by hammering a bass drum with one foot as he sings and strums his dreadnought guitar. The other members are Winston Marshall, who plays banjo and dobro, and Ted Dwane, a bassist.

Most of their songs are earnest, romantic meditations on love, sin and redemption, rich with biblical imagery and introspective pathos. The tunes tend to crescendo and spiral upwards in tempo and emotion, before falling back to a softer denouement, often delivered as a cappella repetition of the chorus or an echo of a previous verse.

It is a powerful formula the band employed again and again on Wednesday night, mixing their familiar hit songs from their 2009 debut album “Sigh No More” (Glassnote) with material from their new CD.< /p>

Packed shoulder to shoulder to shoulder for more than a hundred yards in front of the stage, the crowd sang along with “Little Lion Man,” “Winter Winds,” “White Blank Page, and “Roll Away Your Stone,” all stand-out cuts from the band's first album, which came out three years ago.

The cheering was more subdued for the seven new songs Mumford & Sons performed, though they were firmly in the same vein as the songs from the first album.

On some of the new songs, however, Mumford & Sons edged away from their rocked-up bluegrass sound toward a more conventional rock instrumentation. Mr. Mumford put down his guitar and played drums as he sang the lead of “Lover of the Light,” an exuberant love song on the unreleased CD, while Mr. Dwane traded his stand-up acoustic bass for an electric.

Toward the end of the show, the band made a nod to where they were standing. The band's horn section did a short version of “New York, New York.” Then Mr. Lovett said: “May we have a warm round of applause for Mr. Frank Sinatra, ladies and gentlemen?” (Mr. Sinatra was from Hoboken.)

Later, Mr. Mumford told the audience “We love America” and then covered Paul Simon's “The Boxer,” substituting “New Jersey” for “New York” on a well-known line.

Then it was time to take it home. Mr. Mumford played the opening guitar riff for “The Cave,” and the crowd erupted in cheers as thousands of hands shot in the air. The group tore through the up tempo song, ratcheting up the energy and volume as people clapped and sang the refrain. The last chord was still ringing when a fireworks display bloomed over the river.