A legendary band at an historic venue – for this is not a pub or theatre space named after the famous tea clipper, but a gig held under the very hull of the prime sailing vessel on display in London’s historic district of Greenwich. What could be a more apt space for the London gig by Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, Ric Sanders and Chris Leslie – the current line-up of Fairport – on their “Autumn Acoustic” tour? With the audience seated under the huge copper clad hull, and a stage setting that is undeniably unique, it’s also a surprisingly intimate space with the band members wandering around the room as if in a pub back-room folk club, it’s a memorable event before a note is played.
This is a particularly long lived version of this extremely long lived and storied band. Only Simon Nicol represents as a “founder member” and has around 48 years active in the band, Dave Pegg has 50 years of band association, violin player Ric Sanders has clocked up 40 years, whilst multi-instrumentalist Chris Leslie has 30 or so years of service to the flagship “folk-rock” band of these shores. Or, put another way, there’s a band membership total that exceeds the age of the Cutty Sark itself. What a thought – there are precious few groups that can make such a statement, and naturally this makes Fairport Convention a band that doesn’t know the meaning of “misstep”, never annoyingly super-slick but always fully in possession of their music.
Taking the stage promptly at 7 pm, the gig got under way with ‘Walk Awhile‘ from the “Full House” album, a song that Simon Nicol noted dates from 1970, adding that “we won’t get stuck in the seventies. that’s not our way” whilst introducing the Richard Thompson/Dave Swarbrick penned ‘Crazy Man Michael‘ that pushes back into the Sixties. It’s such a powerful song – a folk-horror tinged murder ballad, with the murderer the most confused about what has occurred, it’s a song that retains its strangeness and emotional power after all the years of being played.
There are different layers to the band, each member brings a certain character to the set. Simon Nicol’s main role is to provide that connection to the earliest days with Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny as his band mates. Chris Leslie brings a certain whimsy to Fairport – a wide-eyed hippy joy in the music making and a determination to define Banbury as one of the most significant towns in England, whether that be through the memories of the horse fairs of his youth in ‘Banbury Fair‘ or the folk meets doo-wop of ‘The Year of ’59‘ which recalls the Banbury UFO sightings that occurred in the wake of the launching of Sputnik. It’s a strange thing to hear this low-key semi-autobiographical song with the looming presence of the figureheads behind the band, adding to the surreal feel of the song
Having thanked the four or five people who’d bought the album “Tipplers Tales“, Dave Pegg introduced one of his instrumentals – ‘Bankruptured‘ – with the story of how Phonogram had asked the band not to record the four albums they were still under contract for, buying them out of the deal for £7,000 each. At last they were rich, they could retire! Well – it was 1978.
Ric Sanders sticks solely to his violin – whilst the rest of the band sing and harmonise as they play – with good reason as he dazzles with his spirited playing on songs such as ‘Doctor of Physik‘ a song, it is noted, by Thompson and Dave Swarbrick, neither of whom could be present “for wildly different reasons.” He was equally impressive playing the Shetland fiddle tunes that make up the second part of ‘John Gaudie‘ – had this been a standing gig (and had the audience been a trifle younger) then this would have been the impromptu ceilidh section of the evening
There was a nice moment of synchronicity when playing ‘Lalla Rookh‘, a sailor’s pledge to the spirit of his ship as embodied by its figure head, as that very figurehead was looking over the band’s shoulder. And the sailor’s life on tall ships inspired ‘Around the Wild Cape Horn‘ which couldn’t have been sung in a more appropriate venue either. The latter was a brought to the band song – it’s a Ralph McTell number – as was the deeply steeped in tradition ‘Banks of Sweet Primroses’ which the legendary Dave Swarbrick brought to Fairport after spending time with the Copper Family. After so many years there’s so many layers to Fairport: the experimental folk-rock band with a surfeit of talented songwriters; the good-time interpreters of traditional folk; the weavers of their own mythologies in song. It’s all on display on this evening.
If the first half appearance of Sandy Denny’s mournful ‘Fotheringay‘ had been moving then this was as nothing to the late in the second set song of hers that Simon Nicol sang. Having said how, despite her relatively short time as part of Fairport, she would always be the Fairport girl, and they “would forever be her backing band” he launched into a lovely version of ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes‘ which had a little extra frisson in this venue and with a wet and cold autumnal night just outside it. This was followed by the set closer of a truly rollicking version of ‘Matty Groves‘ with a distinctive banjo accompaniment from Chris Leslie.
Having hidden behind their instruments by way of saving on clambering off and back on stage for the encore there was just one more song to go. And how could any Fairport Convention conclude other than with ‘Meet On the Ledge‘? It’s now a cathartic sing-a-long, the closure of a communion with the pre-eminent English folk-rock band, it’s safe to say that no-one will ever carve out such a vast niche in that genre’s temple.
