As I walked out on an autumn’s eve, for to view the fields and to take the air… but the air was damp, and the fields were all sodden, so when I spied the twinkling lights of the hall I strode on in. This was my first Fairport Convention gig, even though they tour the UK twice annually, spring and autumn. Sandwiched between is their multi-generational Cropredy Festival that brings eclectic high calibre acts from across the globe to some twenty thousand faithful who regularly join them at their spiritual base in rural Oxfordshire. The current set up of Fairport Convention has survived nearly 30 years. The most recent recruit is Chris Leslie who joined in 1996. You can tell he’s a youngster because he has a song about being an infant in 1959.
This beautiful early Victorian Music Hall sees Fairport Convention on the second night of their autumn tour. We are in Settle N. Yorks, (I travelled to the gig ‘cross hill and dale on the Carlisle to Settle railway), with four southerners playing their small part in the rural northern economy by filling halls like this throughout the land. The seated crowd looks like a mix of Fairport faithful (band t-shirts) and venue regulars perhaps not so familiar with the band.
Sat in a line, perhaps unwittingly choreographed with the necks of all their instruments pointed stage left, the boys are, like the fans, decked out in rock tour t-shirts. The exception is Simon Nicol, a founding member, who adopts a muted abstract patterned shirt (he was recently seen in a Beverly Craven tee that would have nicely completed the fan look). There are enough old classics to please including ‘Matty Groves’ and ‘Meet on the Ledge’. Their most popular song on Spotify, the late Sandy Denny’s ‘Who Knows Where the Time Goes ?’ is omitted, but a glance back at set lists shows it is oft included in shows.
This evening’s set draws heavily from the album, “Full House” (1970), songs such as ‘Walk a While’, ‘Doctor of Physick’ and ‘Now be Thankful‘ still sound fresh, eccentric and tight after fifty-plus years of performance. “Full House” was recorded after Sandy Denny and Ashley Hutchings had left and the remainder of the band, led by Dave Swarbrick, decamped from London and occupied an abandoned village pub in Hertfordshire. The nucleus of that commune is here tonight, Nicol on lead vocal and acoustic guitar and Dave Pegg on bass, vocals and burgundy trousers. The four piece is completed by Ric Sanders on fiddle and Chris Leslie on mandolin, banjo, violin and vocal. The latter pair have a shared background of being Oxfordshire locals who were both teenage fans of the band and in later years became guest players then members. The lack of drums in tonight’s set perhaps adds more pressure in the gaps, but the musicality and the range and harmony of the vocals were a delight to hear, at some moments almost a smooth CSNY feel. Part of the common ground between americana and English folk is the recurring autumnal presence in the song writing, and among the highlights are in some of the songs that Leslie sings on that exact theme: ‘Banbury Fair’, his own, and ‘Cider Rain’ written by James Woods. Across the set I counted at least ten song writers represented including Thompson/Swarbrick, Leslie, Sanders, Woods, James Taylor, Stuart Marston and a handful of uncredited traditional wordsmiths.
‘Meet on the Ledge’ is the crowd-pleasing encore, and Pegg says it takes on added poignancy as the years go on and the crowd leaves into the Yorkshire rain humming the song all with their own interpretation.
Rather like the Settle to Carlisle line, the Fairport’s were threatened with closure in the late 70’s early 80’s only to go from strength to strength providing a vital link between the past and the future. The band are touring until 9th November, coming to a railway town near you.
