TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

I've been a fan of Fairport since I first heard them on record in the early 70s, but I didn't actually get to see them live until my first Cropredy, which was 1984.  So can any of you knowledgeable types out there tell me when they began playing 'Ledge' as the encore and how it morphed into the anthem it has since become?  

(I recall a year or two back Simon telling the audience at one of the Wintour gigs (think it was Brum) that Richard Thompson had 'tossed off' the song very quickly - to ensuing sniggers, of course.)   ;D

I first saw them live around the same time as you - well maybe a year or two later - by which time Meet... was well established as the closer.  It appears as the last song on Farewell, Farewell, so they were playing it back then at that point in the show.  But when they began playing it there, I don't know.  I suspect it wasn't untilaround then, and then it became established through closing the Cropredy reunion shows, but those who saw them back in the 'old days' might know more than me.  It certainly doesn't appear on either Live Convention or the Before The Moon live album when Sandy was back singing with them in 1974.

it must have been round about then that it became the final number - I've got a recording of a show in Cologne in 1984 when it was played in the middle of the set, but pretty much every one I have after that date, it's the closing song.

I'm pretty certain that the first time I saw them live ('81 or '82, at the Wimbledon Theatre) they played it as the last song and encored with Matty instead.  Jonah looked most confused by whatever was going on (maybe a setlist SNAFU or something?).

I've definitely seen them when it hasn't been played at all at least a couple of times (one year at Canterbury Marlowe - maybe '93ish - springs to mind), but there was definitely an air of 'what the hell happened there?' about its non-appearance.  I think they encored with WKWTTG instead on that occasion.  I think another time might have been Swansea in Jan 1997, if that was the year of Chris's first tour.

It doesn't feel quite right.  

Really taxing the memory banks here. Not sure if it's the answer you're looking for, but it's my best attempt. MOTL has been played live from almost the day it was written. Then, like now, it's just a great song, with a very sing-along-able chorus. Audience reaction will have been noted, and as it's popularity increses, it gets moved up the set list. Then with the longevity of Fairport, it just took on a whole new meaning.

Nice question btw...

Not actually true, to the best of my knowledge.  Other than a single airing in '69, I don't think it was attempted live again until the late 70s.  The record was no sooner out than the crash happened.  By the next gigs the band were doing the L&L material.

Am I right about this, folks?

Jules

I bow to your greater knowledge. Age plays funny tricks...

It may have been more than one outing in '69, but it was certainly retired for many many years.  It probably brought up too many raw memories of Martin Lamble, with whom the song was very much associated post crash.

Jules

I seem to remember reading that it really didnt take on its "anthem" close the show status until sometime around '79, as already mentioned. Certainly on Farewell,Farewell it has that feeling about it. I did think Fairport put it aside essentially up to that point.

I do know that for many a show here in the U.S. they didnt always play it or Matty when I saw them in the 90's onwards, though this was sometimes a case of doing two sets a night and the band wishing for some semblance of variety I imagine.

I seem to recall from Patrick Humphries' book that it was played at Martin Lamble's funeral and then not until the "farewell" tour in 1979.

That sounds familar to me too, Barry.

Jules

I thought it wasn't played for a while, but I wasn't sure, hence the question. The explanation above seems to make sense. But I'm learning all sorts on this thread, so thanks everyone.

You're right there Barry, it didn't get reinstated until '79, normally as an encore. After the crash they effectively drew a line under their career up to that point, retired the whole of the current repertoire and started again from scratch with L&L. Unless you count Si Tu Dois Partir on Top of the Pops, which was three months after the crash, but as they were mining for a TV show I guess that doesn't count as a live performance anyway. It wasn't until Sandy rejoined that they did anything from the first three albums again, when WKWTTG and occasionally She Moved Through the Fair were brought into the live set.

I heard them live a couple/three times in the late sixties and I don't recall them playing it.  As it was a favourite of mine, I'm sure it would have registered if they had.  As an aside, I played in a pub band in the Ilford area, called Ropey Boat, in the seventies and MOTL was one of our staples.  It always got a good reception.  I like to think it was because of our brilliance but I suspect it was because it was such a good song

Simon said a while back that the only ever-present song in the Fairport sets over the years is "Matty Groves".

And even that was dropped by the Rising For The Moon line-up in favour of Tam Lin.

Simon must have forgotten that!

We saw FC a few years back in Aberdare (don't ask) and I'm sure they didn't end on MOTL but I can't remember what they sang instead  :-\ maybe WKWTTG ....

I like MOTL - a lot - but I find it a wee bit depressing so I tend to stay away from it

It's the most uplifting comforting song I know.  Which is probably why I always blub all the way through it..  ;)

I saw them on the acoustic tour a couple of years ago when they finished with Best Wishes the Steve Ashley song. Seemed very wrong. It had been a very good evening but the absence of MOTL let me feeling quite flat.

"Best Wishes" was mooted as a MOTL replacement for awhile but I think the Fairports realised that was not going to be accepted as such by their traditional audiences.

Simon wasn't in that line up

Ah, that would explain it.

Not that he specified "by every Fairport lineup that he was in", but I guess it's unfair to expect him to know what was played in his absence.

That wasn't a personal conversation, by the way, it was said from the stage on the XXXV tour.

I wondered how I would cope with it at Cropredy the first year after my Mum died (we missed 2005 as she was too ill for us to leave her) but it had no effect at all on me  ??? maybe I'm just hard-nosed! Or I've deliberately hardened myself to it, as I certainly used to blub at it  ::)

Well, it can be, given that the song is "about being exposed and vulnerable and subject to public scrutiny. Probably about life as a performing musician. And if you are sincere, you get to keep practicing your art, and it all comes round again." (RT himself) In the context of Fairport and their 45 years, it works for me. However, dwelling on lost loved ones at the end of an FC concert, being surrounded by people crying for their lost love ones and seeing photos of the recently deceased is a tad depressing and somewhat morbid to my mind. (Oops! Better take cover! ;))

Possibly the WKWTTG tour - they finished with that when I saw them and very emotional that was too, no MOTL that night (funny that I can remember the the set quite well, but hell knows where it was that I saw them).

Personally I love the song, it was possibly the first song by them I heard on a Radio One session (Stuart Henry show, I think) & seem to recall it being played mid set in the Farewell tour. Since the resurrection, having taken it's place as the finale at most shows I've seen & at Cropredy, I feel ambivalent about it. There is something so intensely personal about it that it's somehow devalued by constant repetition. It obviously means so much to so many that it must be difficult for the band to, assuming they even wanted to, remove it from it's place in the set list. Personally, I'd like to see regain it's power by dropping it from "normal" shows & reserved for the last song at Cropredy. (More heresy perhaps, but the same thing pretty much applies to Matty) :)

Not fair to those who cannot make it to Cropredy.

No argument there. Just my (selfish) opinion.

I saw the acoustic tour in St Helens in 2010. It was very poorly attended and the whole band seemed grumpy. There wasn't an encore played at all - I recall that Tiny Tin Lady played support that night (being locals) and the singer was in the audience for Fairport's set and shouted out at the end something about 'No Meet on the ledge..shame!'

i am pretty sure he said the same thing during the BBC4 documentary recently.

Amusingly (and anyone who ever went to one of his concerts knows it would have been), Noel Murphy was probably ending his shows with his version of Meet on the Ledge several years before Fairport. For example, the song closes his live album, "Caught in the Act" from 1978 and I saw him do it as the last song in a concert in Chesterfield about the same time. (He'd stepped in at the last minute for a poorly Mike Harding and had the place in hysterics for the whole concert.)

Simon has likened Fairport to a football team. In that case, MOTL is their You'll Never Walk Alone.

I've got an old vinyl copy of Noel Murphy's album, 'Murf' and there's a version of MOTL on that.  In the notes he says it's the song that closes all the shows and then they collapse in a heap and kip on the empties (if my memory serves me right)

As we left the Chesterfield concert after a rousing MOTL, we had to pass the "artist's dressing room". The door was open and he was genuinely collapsed in a heap! As he said, "May the Lord have Murphy on you"...

I thought the same this year, after losing Mum in March.
It was the first time I've not cried throughout the song.

funny isn't it?

I think you both make a very good point.  I got into the band and fell in love with the song at 15.  My old man died when I was 20.  I thought in advance it would break me in two listening to that immediately after he died (Cropredy '87).  But it didn't.  I cried but I was uplifted.  It's been like that for me ever since.  Powerful stuff.

Not a chance - Fairport are SO much better than Liverpool (sorry, Peter!)  Solid defence (Pegg & Conway), commanding midfield presence (Nicol) and 2 fantastic wingers (Sanders & Leslie).

I think the first time I heard MOTL was on a Granada teatime TV show - so it must have been 68-69-ish - certainly before I saw the band on Ainsdale beach and became a fan.  It didn't really strike any emotional chords at the time, but it definitely did at Cropredy 1979...

For me Paul, they are just missing a striker - to put it in the back of the net regularly.   RT in the transfer market please!     ;D

I love MOTL but I find it uplifting rather than sad. For me the emotional aspect of that song comes from the shared experience of all singing something together rather than from thinking about people who've passed away. Having said that I don't associate that particular song with anyone close to me who's died. On the other hand I can never hear You Can't Always Get What You Want by the Stones without getting emotional about my Dad's passing as that's what we played at his funeral.

That guitar riff just before the chorus is so damned cool that I'm already charged with adrenalin before the refrain kicks in.  And then there's the contrast between Ian and Sandy's voices in the verses.  Such a fine record.

Jules