Let me start with a confession; I don't like folk festivals - too many people, too much mud, too many blocked toilets, and I hate sleeping in a tent. So I have never been to Cropredy. I have seen Fairport Convention live numerous times but always in concert halls. So this set of three CDs could have been especially produced for people like me. The album celebrates Fairport's thirtieth anniversary so we hear the band in its various incarnations playing
live in front of an enthusiastic audience. All your favourite tracks are here - Come all yes, Reynardine, Matty Groves, Walk awhile, Sloth, Now be thankful, Dirty linen, Meet on the ledge, Si tu dois partir, and some less familiar ones - thirty-two in all.
It must be wonderful for a touring band like Fairport to have their own annual festival where they know they are playing in front of friends and fans who want to hear Joe Boyd's reminiscences of his first meetings with the band, and a potted history of the band from Ashley Hutchings, even if they have heard it all before. The story of the famous Much Haddam lorry crash is certainly worth hearing again, likewise - on a darker note - the tragedies that robbed the band of two if its early stars.
John Peel once said, 'This band had brought me more joy in the past two years than any other I can think of.' Two years! This band has been bringing joy to audiences for well over thirty years and on the evidence of this album they show no sign of losing their flair or enthusiasm.
Howard Baker
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