This was posted on a Bob Dylan messageboard/site...................not by me although i did start the thread.
Has the board died? Hope someone is still reading it. Here's a review of Fairport's show at Nettlebed Folk Club last Monday night. I was lucky enough to get a return ticket for this sell-out gig the previous week. The review was originally written for another board, with younger people who were mostly not familiar with Fairport, especially the modern incarnation of the band, so apologies for saying some stuff that you all know.
I hadn't seen Britain's most famous folk rock group since 2002, when I was at their 35th anniversary show at the Cropredy Festival. Amazingly, the lineup of this most changeable of groups had not changed in the interim -- it has been stable since the departure of Martin Aalcock and the replacement of long-serving drummer David Mattack with Gerry Conway (ex-Fotheringay, etc) in 1998. Although Chris Leslie has changed so much I wasn't sure it was him until he started singing -- he has turned gray and lost a lot of hair since I last saw him. Peggy has grown a splendid beard. Even Simon no longer looks quite so cherub-like.
When the band reformed in 1985 after a six year hiatus (apart from their annual Cropredy festivals of course) with Simon Nicol the only original member (though Dave Pegg on bass has been with the band since 1970), it relied mostly on traditional songs and tunes, and songs written from outside the band. Though when you had the likes of Ralph McTell contributing some of his finest songs ("Hiring Fair", "Red and Gold") and the worthy Steve Tilston regularly contributing fine material, this didn't matter too much.
The most significant development in the modern Fairport was the addition of Chris Leslie in 1997. By the time of 1999's excellent Wood and the Wire Leslie was writing songs regularly for the band, so that for the first time since the band's glory days when Richard Thompson, Sandy Denny, and Dave Swarbrick were writing for the group, original songs were coming from inside the band. Leslie's songs are not as brilliant as those of the aforementioned past alumni, but they are very good, and are getting better with each album.
These days Fairport are a semi-acoustic band, with only Conway's drums and Peggy's electric bass maintaining the "rock" part of the "folk-rock" (although Ric Sander's plugs in his violin occasionally).
The show kicked off with the hilarious "Widow of Westmoreland's Daughter", a live staple. It should come later in the show really, when the audience (and band) are a little more oiled up.
The band then appropriately (it was the warmest evening of the year) played Chris Leslie's Spring Song from the band's most recent album, Sense of Occasion, which led into the old Morris favourite, The Princess Royal.
Then the first highlight of the evening -- a gorgeous version of the Richard Thompson-penned classic "Crazy Man Michael." It is strange that Simon has probably sung this song more often than its author, although it is an allegorical take on Thompson's feelings of guilt over the death of his first girlfriend in a post-gig road crash that also took the life of the band's original drummer, Martin Lamble. But Simon's transformation into a vocal powerhouse is one of the best things about the modern band.
Next Chris Leslie took over the vocals for his own "I'm Already There." Though this is one of his best songs, the contrast with the preceding song was notable. The power of Thompson's songs is that they draw on traditional imagery, to the extent that many of them have been taken for traditional songs. Leslie's are thoughtful and well-researched, but missing that X ingredient that marks out the best modern folk songs. "I'm Already There" is a kind of update to famous ballad of Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition of 1855. The first verse quotes "Lady Franklin's Lament," which has one of the loveliest melodies in the folk repertoire. The song passes between John Back, a member of Franklin's first expedition, and his brother Henry, vicar of Banbury (spiritual home of the band). The original version can be heard on Fairport's very fine 2004 album Over the Next Hill.
One of the highlights of the first half was when the band all stood up for the only time in the concert and all performed ukuleles of various sizes (except Conway, who left his drum kit behind and donned a washboard, which he wore like an apron) on a witty song called Ukulele Central, written by Leslie but not yet recorded on a studio album. The song is the story of the ukulele's contribution to music. I downloaded the lyrics from the Fairport website. I don't think I've ever heard a song that name-drops to quite this extent. E.g.
The voice of Jiminy Cricket
Was a ukulele player so fine
Konter flew one to the North Pole
Lyle Ritz played jazz for a time
George Formby a Wigan Hero
Tiny Tim was singing so high
Now The Ukulele “O” of GB spreads its fame far and
wide
George and Paul and Joe Brown
Viv Stanshall, Lucile Ball
Blue Hawain Elvis
Roy Smeck and Wendell Hall
Lesley Sarony
And Arthur Godfrey could be seen
Not forgetting the Ukulele Lady Queen - May Singhi
Breen
Anyway, this brought the house down, especially since the band had us all joining in on the chorus. There is a version on youtube from last year:
http://www.youtube.com/v/E9H9M96SPHk&hl=en_GB&fs=1&
Except last night Simon played a bass ukulele instead of whatever sort he's playing in that clip.
The title track of the aforementioned "Wood and the Wire" sent us into the interval break.
In the second half highlights were "Frozen Man" (a James Taylor song about a cyrogenically preserved man that should be better known), "Red and Gold" (Ralph McTell's story of the Battle of Cropredy in the Civil War, which was a tour de force for Simon on vocals and Gerry Conway's martial drumming), and "Keep on Turning the Wheel", from the band's most recent (2007) album Sense of Occasion. Another fine Chris Leslie number, this ode to a "1966 split screen VW camper van" is perhaps his finest song to date. The reminiscences of the Beatles in the lyrics and arrangement are deliberate. And somehow, the much-loved old camper van seems to be a metaphor for Fairport Convention itself. Yes, it's seen better days, but with a lick of fresh paint it looks as good as new, and still goes far:
Now that you're painted green
Log book and history, magical mystery
Oh what a vintage dream!
And your journey has only just begun...
We'll keep on turning the wheel
As such, the song was the perfect intro to the emotional highlight of the evening as the band dipped into their own "log book and history" for "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" Sandy Denny's signature song and masterpiece (first recorded by Sandy with The Strawbs in 1967 and later on Fairport's third album Unhalfbricking; in the States, it is probably best known from Judy Collins's inferior 1968 cover). Simon has almost made this his own song in recent years, and really put some passion into the lyrics. Ric Sanders nearly fell off his chair with his violin during this number, he got so carried away. It is hard to believe that Sandy was about 20 when she wrote this song.
Last song before the encore was Leslie's "John Gaudie," which the band have played every time I have seen them, much to my annoyance (the song is pitched too high for Chris's already highish vocals), although it leads into the exciting fiddle tune "The Bowman's Retreat." The encore was the Richard Thompson-penned Meet on the Ledge, which surprised me, as the band didn't used to perform it outside of the Cropredy Festival. It's the anthem of the Cropredy experience -- when audience and band become as one, and vow to continue to renew their acquaintance: but with a tinge of sadness, knowing that not everyone will make it next time, and in any case, it can't go on forever. It was the perfect way to end a very enjoyable and highly entertaining evening.
Next week I'm seeing Jon Boden, of Bellowhead fame, with his new band, the Remnant Kings.
Full setlist (some of the songs are probably in the wrong order):
1.Widow of Westmoreland's Daughter
2.Spring Song/Princess Royale
3.Crazy Man Michael
4.I'm Already There
5.I Wandered by A Brookside
6.Peggy's Pub
7.Rocky Road
8.Ukulele Central
9.Just Dandy
10. My Love Is in America
11.Wood and the Wire
12. ? [can't remember anything about this apart from Chris Leslie's terrible joke that introduced it and that it was something to do with an American cop who always gets his man]
12. Frozen Man
13. Banks of the Sweet Primeroses
14. Red and Gold
15. Keep on Turning the Wheel
16. Who Knows Where the Time GOes
17. John Gaudie/Bowman's Retreat
18. Meet on the Ledge
