Mumford & Sons

The sun had set on Cotton Wood Flats in Guthrie, Oklahoma, and THE Gentlemen of the Road were taking the stage.

It had reached 101 degrees.   (You can read about my near heat stroke on yesterday’s post.)

As Mumford & Sons took the stage, the sun had disappeared, my friend, but the breezes had died down and it seemed like the humidity sky rocketed.

We were all still sweating but at least the sun wasn’t bearing down on us.

Yes we were still hot, but the band had to have been sweating their arses off.    Marcus remarked that they were from Britain and not used to this type of weather.   In fact, he mentioned that a lot throughout the concert.

Around the time Alabama Shakes took the stage, the crowd began to grow.

35,000 people.

Then some fun started.     Big Mike, the emcee, announced that the fire department would be spraying people down on the far side of the stage.    Soon after, he started promoting a paint ball fight in the same area.

Then, these characters appeared.

Paint fight: 6:50 p.m.

Then the marching band came through.  🙂

Again, there were advertising the infamous paint fight.

Remarkably though, it was pretty tame.   Don’t get me wrong, there were people letting their freak flags fly, but everyone was friendly and cooperative.   (Be rest assured that we did not participate in the paint fight but did see some poor souls who did.   What were they thinking?)

Finally, after all the shenanigans, THE band took the stage.

I won’t run down all of the song line-up but they played most everything.   They started out with “Lover’s Eyes” and “Little Lion Man.”    That most definitely got us all going.     Obviously, we were on our feet the entire time, jumping and clapping at the appropriate times.  😉

Night pictures suck. Sorry, but that is them!

T-Bone Burnett even joined them on stage.    I could have listened all night long.   I forgot about the heat and humidity.    It was heaven.

They ended the concert but we all knew they would be back.

Back they were singing one acoustic song and then a most amazing acappella rendition of “Sister.”   (Download “Sister” for free here.)   Truly amazing.   About two to three bars in, the audience (all 35,000 of us) started clapping in time (in perfect time and in unison).    It was amazing.   I think we even surprised them.

To end the encore, they invited all the bands from the past two days (around 50 musicians) to the stage to sing “A Little Help from My Friends.”      It was perfect.

I just wanted to share a bit of the other quirkiness that was around Guthrie last weekend as well.

Love the stache!   This was at a watermelon vendor downtown.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair. Some of the Victorian architecture.

Recycle and compost. You can see the Union Jack painted in the center of the intersection.

Guthrie rocks!

And obviously, M&S rocks.   They donated $109,000 to the local food bank.  (For more, click here.)