Report: Rockfeedback @ iTunes Festival Night 12 Mumford & Sons, The Temper Trap & Stephen Fry, 12/7/09
4/5
By: Alex Lee Thomson
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This year, Rockfeedback is delighted to be the official blog partner for the rather exciting iTunes Festival, taking place at London's Roundhouse every night in July. Over the course of the festival, we'll not be missing a night, delivering morning-after reports on everyone from Oasis and Bloc Party to Franz Ferdinand and Kasabian playing intimate sets to fans lucky enough to have won tickets to the shows.
There are a few certainties in this life, one is that you should never mix beer and wine, and the other is that Stephen Fry is always right. Opening tonight's show, his speech - and it was a speech - about the history and social evolution of music was a rare chance to hear the great man wax lyrical about a subject he intriguingly seemed very passionate about. From Gutenberg's printing press to the ethics of illegal downloading, his lecture was a brilliant and surreal way to open proceedings.
Followed by deeply exciting new band The Temper Trap, these guys throw Fine Young Cannibals' vocals around vast, thrashing Bloc Party-like guitar hooks and a tense, earthy atmosphere similar to Fight Like Apes. It's shoe-gaze in part, but aided by a fantastic stage backdrop, the performance was blisteringly enthralling, right up to their rather peculiar cover of Springsteen's 'Dancing in the Dark'. Frontman Dougie is an extraordinary vocal talent, 'Down River' sonically blowing the venue to shards.
As a performance, it's a tough act to follow, but headliners Mumford and Sons do so relish a challenge.
They arrive on stage in a perfect line. In the centre of the pack is former Laura Marling drummer turned voice of new folk, Marcus Mumford. They plough into 'White Blank Page' and 'Roll Away Your Stone', winding up inside the heartfelt, dramatic choke of 'The Cave'. Marcus's voice flies out over the crowd. It's rich, enchanting and vibrant. As a band they pit themselves amid the likes of Noah and the Whale, and while they're cut from the same stuff, Mumford and Sons have cleared the arguably poppier aspects of their folk sound favouring more solemn, vivid verses and thus more conspicuous choruses that haunt you before igniting into huge, gospel choir anthems.
No song follows that formula as much as finale track, 'Dustbowl Dance' which finds Mumford back behind his drum kit, belting the skins with adrenaline surging through his wrists, using every last second of energy he may have left inside him. It's noisy, fast and entrancing... an outburst of genius. The stage is left hallow as they return for an acappella rendition of 'Sister' before we drain from the venue, another fantastic night of the iTunes Festival under our belts.
Artists in this article: The Temper Trap, Mumford and Sons
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