Live music: Mumford and Sons - 3Arena, Dublin

3/5

No musician wants to become a cliche. Two albums in, that was the unhappy fate that loomed for bearded banjo bashers, Mumford and Sons.

Musically and sartorially, they invited pigeonholing and mockery. While their best songs communicated a transcendent sweep, their worst suggested a comedy skit of the band.

Cannily, the London quartet rebooted with this year’s Wilder Mind LP. Shooting for U2 and landing closer to Coldplay, the record was a mostly successful arena rock-fever dream — proof that there was more to Marcus Mumford and his mutton-chopped chums than whiskers and mandolin solos.

In concert, however, they faced the conundrum of grafting together Mumfords 1.0 and 2.0. Segueing from folksy ho-down to sweeping rocker may have been straightforward in the studio. But how to do it with 14,000 fans watching?

Mumford and Sons’ solution was to simply get on with things. Backed by two drummers and wearing grown-up dark shirts and denim hoodies, they plunged into opener, ‘Snake Eyes’, like musicians with a point to prove.

Quite what that point might be was soon glossed over, though, as they quickly reached for the banjos and delivered crowd-pleasing readings of ‘I Will Wait’ and ‘Thistle and Weeds’ — balmy, affirmative folk-pop that proceeded from twenty-something angst to spiritual yearning with disarming cheerfulness.

The rest of the gig was in much the same vein, occasional swerves into Springsteen-esque histrionics inevitably giving way to something frothier and banjo-based (including an all-acoustic ‘Cold Arms’, with the four players gathered around a single mic).

It was awkward and sometimes flailing, but the crowd lapped up every chime and chirrup — and since when has it been a crime to give your audience exactly what it craves?