Ably supported by David Hughes, we were treated to an evening of excellent music from all eras of the bands history up to and including the latest album "Who Knows where the Time Goes". The beautiful "Wishfulness Waltz" from this new album stood out in the show for me, along with "Genesis Hall" a Richard Thompson number I had not heard before. There was fiddle music a plenty with newest recruit Chris Leslie adding the possibility of double barrelled fiddle in conjunction with the ever hyper-active Ric Saunders. I feel they may be need to revert to some older technology for Ric and plug him in somewhere. These radio mikes just allow him to race around and give us all twisted necks trying to work out where he has gone. With Dave Pegg, Dave Mattacks and Simon Nicol in fine fettle the show zipped by and was over all too soon.
It has been too long since I last saw Fairport at their 1992 Reunion and I must not leave it so long next time. It is also far too long since they were on the Isle of Wight and I hope they can fit us into next years tour. If you ever get the chance to go and see Fairport Covention jump at it. From Rock to Folk and the merging of the two, you will be royally entertained by people who produce great music and thoroughly enjoy doing so.
On the way out Matt Pegg (son of Dave) did an excellent job of tempting me to buy "The Cropredy Box" a selection of the music played at the last reunion in 1997.
I did not need much tempting to buy recordings of the annual reunions as my favourite Fairport album (so far) is "Moat on the Ledge" a recording of the 1982 festival. "Moat on the Ledge" has everything, great music and the obvious enthusiasm of the band playing traditional numbers, their own songs and material from others including Bob Dylan and Jerry Lee Lewis. The highlight of the album is Judy Dyble singing "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell, a truly beautiful rendition of a great song.
Back to "The Cropredy Box". This turned out to be a three disk set of music as good as "Moat on the Ledge", and I would be hard pushed to choose between them now. I am annoying my household by listening to it almost every day. For this thirtieth anniversary of the band, members past and present gathered at Cropredy and treated the audience to samples of their music starting from the formation of the band in 1967 to the present day over two evenings. Along with the music Ashley Hutchings links the numbers with information about the changing line up of the band over the years. There are some real gems on this set. From the early days "Genesis Hall" with Richard Thompson's powerful guitar and Vikki Clayton's clear and beautiful vocals. The introduction of Dave Swarbrick and the following "Come all Ye" makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Since I was treated to the Full House line up on the Friday evening of the 1982 festival I have a very soft spot for that group of musicians. It is that line up which starts the second disc of the set and the Saturday night entertainment. The bouncy "Angel Delight" leads into numbers from Dan Ar Braz and Ralph McTell, and the second cd finishes with a fabulous performance of the Sandy Denny number "Solo" with Cathy LeSurf on vocals. The third disc starts with "John Barleycorn", moves to the longest lasting line up of the band (1985-1996) and some great songs including "Wat Tyler", and then the present line up leads into the finale with all the available members past and present on stage. As with all Fairport concerts "Meet on the Ledge" is the last number from the festival and a suitably emotional end for the crowd and the band. A couple of bonus tracks are included on the third disc the second of which is the infamous April Fool call from Simon Nicol to Dave Swarbrick. The air turns blue when Swarb realises his chain is being pulled. If you like Fairport Convention in any of their incarnations or if you are like me and like them all this album is a must.
"The Cropredy Box" from Woodworm Records WR3CD026.
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