Gentlemen of the Road Tour

This past Saturday British folk rock band, Mumford and Sons held their "Gentlemen of the Road" stopover music festival in Portland. With 16,000 people in attendance, it was one of the largest concerts Maine has seen. It might have been the biggest one in Portland ever, as I don't think they have any larger venues than Eastern Prom.

At any rate, the stopover tour branding features 19th and early 20th century themes, with the primary logo being a mustached man in a top hat above two pistols in saltire. Hung around the park were several shield style logos, including the one on the left for the Portland stopover. On the Gentlemen of the Road website, they have a shield-style logo for every city they're stopping at.

It's obviously not the best heraldry - if heraldry at all. But they are attractive logos and it was an amazing show worthy of note.

Also to their credit, there was one shield that I neglected to get a photo of which was simply Gules, two pistols in saltire Or. Below is photo of a banner that was draped behind the band, but above that and out of the picture was the shield featuring the same arms.

Maine's Arms

I was told recently that an obvious first step for this blog would have been writing about the arms of the State of Maine. That would make sense, except that I don't believe I could do any better than the article published by Joseph McMillan, current President of the American Heraldry Society. In fact, AHS has quite a lot of wonderful articles on historical heraldry in the United States, including the arms of several states and Presidents.

The coat of arms of Maine was adopted by a law of June 9, 1820, three months after Maine's admission to statehood. The law described the arms as "A Shield, argent, charged with a Pine Tree, a Moose-Deer, at the foot of it, recumbent. Supporters; on dexter side, an Husbandman, resting on a scythe; on sinister side, a Seaman, resting on an anchor. In the foreground, representing sea & land, & under the Shield, the name of the State, in large Roman capitals, to wit MAINE. The whole surmounted by a Crest, the North Star. The Motto, in small Roman capitals, in a label interposed between the Shield & Crest, viz. DIRIGO."

It's worth noting that the flag of the state of Maine and all modern renditions of the arms fixed by the legislature in 1919 are not accurately emblazoned. The field should be Argent, not a landscape.