Where this was said
Disasters Onstage: The Song They Stopped Mid-Way in Australia
At 51:22 · chapter starts 50:38
Sean asks for a great stage disaster story and Marcus delivers immediately. The Prizefighter tour opened in Australia. The band played a song live for the first time. It fell apart completely — everyone in the wrong key, everyone in the wrong time — and rather than attempt to save it Marcus simply stopped the song at the midpoint, said 'that's live music, folks,' and moved on. [1] — Marcus Mumford "That's live music, folks." 51:22 He says it was the worst moment he has ever had on stage. He wanted to fall through the floor. Jason and Sean assure him the audience probably loved it as a blooper moment — Marcus says his wife makes the same point, telling him that the forgotten lyrics and the mistakes are precisely the live moments audiences treasure because they're different from the record. Sean then shares his own one-man-show memory-lapse story where he improvised dialogue to buy himself time.
In Australia on the opening night of the Prizefighter tour, Mumford & Sons started a new song that went so catastrophically wrong — everyone in the wrong key and wrong time — that they just stopped halfway through and never restarted it. Marcus wanted to fall through the floor.
Having three kids made it impossible for Marcus to stay the center of his own universe. It made him more intentional at work, pack more into shorter trips, and come home sooner. He calls it a season of gratitude.
