It has been a long time since Scotland has last seen Denver folk-rock band, The Lumineers – the Barrowlands in 2016 – so they definitely needed an upgrade in venue. Hence the step up from 1,900 at the Barras to 13,000 people in the Hydro. You can certainly tell by the crowd they are more than happy to welcome the band back. 

The band have a great support act in SOAK, aka Derry-born singer-songwriter, Bridie Monds-Watson. Her indie-folk / dream-pop songs tie in very well with the atmosphere The Lumineers aim to create. 

The Lumineers open with amazing visuals of their strong and popular music videos that depict many stories. The visuals are also shown behind the band on their unique staging. They follow up with their single Sleeping on the Floor. As expected, many of their songs get the crowd chanting and dancing along. They also sing many older favourites like Submarines, Flowers in Your Hair and the well-known Ho Hey, which has the whole band lined up at the front of the stage connecting with the crowd. 

They also can’t perform a Scottish tour date without singing Scotland, for which they make all the stage light blue, with visuals of the Scottish landscape projected throughout. This, of course, is popular with the crowd, creating a special moment in the evening. The Lumineers’ songs come with many strong lyrics and stories attached. The most touching one for the crowd is Gun Song. They introduce it by explaining that singer Wesley Schultz lost his father many years ago and found a gun he didn’t know about in his father’s sock drawer. It made him question what else he didn’t know and now he would never find out. It really makes the crowd connect with the band and question the lyric more than they previously had when listening to the albums. 

You can tell the band are loving the atmosphere throughout and their passion for performing only gets stronger as the night progresses. As they perform the popular song Ophelia, Schultz comes off the stage and walks through the standing crowd, having the time of his life. For the encore, they come back with four songs – generous considering the set list is already very long at about 20 songs for the evening. They’ve definitely made the most of being back on tour and performing in an arena in Scotland. Schultz mentions they could never have imagined coming back and performing for a bigger and better crowd and they were so happy to be able to do so. The respect they have for their fans is something special and unique.