Live Review: Gentlemen Of The Road

The usually tranquil country town of Dungog was perhaps the best place to witness Mumford & Sons, forerunners in a roots revival movement, pull off something amazing. The plan sounds simple enough: six acts and 12,000 fans descend on a tiny country town and hold a music festival.

Melbourne folk band Husky opened proceedings, all smiles and camaraderie, with humble thanks to Mumford & Sons for putting together this show. With breathtaking vocal harmonies, cloying acoustic melodies and delicate, intricate arrangements, this band has developed an incredible sound. Yet there is also a kind of sinister, spooky undertone to many of their tracks – induced, perhaps, by the careful pace of Dark Sea or the lyrical content of History's Door. Whatever the case, Husky have developed a kind of duplicity within their music: a number of moods and tones operating at different levels. This band is incredibly skilled.

Willy Mason, who came to Dungog by way of Massachusetts, is a veteran of dirty, gritty folk and blues sounds. Assisted by a couple of The Delta Riggs, Mason brought to life his blues/rock poetry. Listening to Mason is like stepping back in time, like visiting the folk festivals of the 1960s. His lyricism marries social awareness with slow, steady guitar lines: “I want to see through all the lies of society” or “Look around to all the people you see/ How many of them are happy and free?”

This reviewer never really bought into Matt Corby's indie-folk mythology. His lyrics always seemed a minefield of clichés, his arrangements feel repetitive and his angsty, moody onstage persona never seemed particularly appealing. However, judging by the sheer number of audience members shouting Corby's lyrics back to him, applauding and generally having the time of their lives, this reviewer must surely be in the minority. It was kind of endearing when Corby's shy smile broke through his tortured artist expression, as the entire crowd bellowed the lyrics of Brother louder than he could have hoped to contend with.

Sarah Blasko opened her set with the remark: “I'm very pleased to be a gentlewoman of the road… I'm sure you saw that joke coming a mile off.” Though her opening track seemed a little flat and dull, the second track was incredible. Blasko seems in possession of an endless store of articulate, sophisticated, elegant, mature angst – it sits just below the surface of her eloquent love songs, driving the rich beats of she describes as “angry love songs”. It's mature and well-spoken, but angsty nonetheless.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros have quickly become this reviewer's favourite live band. In their male-female harmonies, they are a living, breathing reincarnation of '60s folk/pop outfits like The Mamas & The Papas; in their pure, improvisational approach to music, they are a return to the psychedelia of the '60s. As lead vocalist Alex Ebert loomed over the audience, balancing on the barricade and backlit by golden spotlights, he seemed an embodiment of the fictional character the band is named after, the prophet sent to save the human race, but who keeps getting distracted.

Mumford & Sons took to the stage in the same unassuming, unfazed way they'd been walking around Dungog for the past two days – like it is a totally normal and unremarkable thing to create music that means so much to people that they'd trek hours out of the city to hear it played. “How ya doin', Dungog?” Marcus Mumford shouted over the excited cries of the audience, as the band launched into their set. Paying equal attention to the their debut, Sigh No More, and their second release, Babel, they dispersed tracks like Sigh No More and Little Lion Man amongst their new songs like I Will Wait and Below My Feet. Mumford & Sons' lyricism is full of a heady combination of religion and romance; their tracks are full of gorgeous love poetry as well as near-constant references to God. They are passionate, dramatic, possessed – as though a higher power drives their throbbing rhythms and delicate strings. But perhaps best of all, they have attracted a whole new generation to the incredible power and passion of folk music, which they did again at this show.