Cropredy 2022

[Poor Will (Bill)]

Let’s put it this way, we now know who was soundchecking “Are You Gonna Go My Way”!
Mrs Fripp was on vocal duties.

Excellent!  I look forward to footage of this surfacing.  This was their sole contribution?  Also, important question - was he sitting or standing?

It was, shame there wasn’t more!

[Dan O.]

Folks on Fairporters Facebook page reporting 30 minute queue for the bar!!

Screenshot from Cropredy Village Community Facebook page. Hook Norton have put a call out for bar staff this very morning. You'd think they'd have sorted this before the festival - oh well, better late than never !

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

Let’s put it this way, we now know who was soundchecking “Are You Gonna Go My Way”!
Mrs Fripp was on vocal duties.

Excellent!  I look forward to footage of this surfacing.  This was their sole contribution?  Also, important question - was he sitting or standing?

Sitting, or rather perched on a stool. Watching his wife with pride   and sporting a splendid Mohican  

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

Folks on Fairporters Facebook page reporting 30 minute queue for the bar!!

Screenshot from Cropredy Village Community Facebook page. Hook Norton have put a call out for bar staff this very morning. You'd think they'd have sorted this before the festival - oh well, better late than never !

On Facebook there are posts from the brewery & also FC saying they employed plenty of staff but  some haven’t turned up due to covid & other reasons. So they did try to sort it, but casual staff aren’t always the most dependable! Hopefully it’ll be better today  

[davidmjs]

Let’s put it this way, we now know who was soundchecking “Are You Gonna Go My Way”!
Mrs Fripp was on vocal duties.

Excellent!  I look forward to footage of this surfacing.  This was their sole contribution?  Also, important question - was he sitting or standing?

Sitting, or rather perched on a stool. Watching his wife with pride   and sporting a splendid Mohican  

I've seen a few pics now - excellent  

[Dan O.]

Folks on Fairporters Facebook page reporting 30 minute queue for the bar!!

Screenshot from Cropredy Village Community Facebook page. Hook Norton have put a call out for bar staff this very morning. You'd think they'd have sorted this before the festival - oh well, better late than never !

On Facebook there are posts from the brewery & also FC saying they employed plenty of staff but  some haven’t turned up due to covid & other reasons. So they did try to sort it, but casual staff aren’t always the most dependable! Hopefully it’ll be better today  

Since sharing this, I've seen the post on the official page - they've had no shows due to Covid, so they're doing their best.
Anyway, having shared the ad, someone who fancies picking up a couple of bar shifts might see it and get in touch, so all good...

[Nick Reg]

Can't escape from Hack
ett. Make it go away PLEASE

[John747]

Looked like a mass exit from where I was stood!

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

Can't escape from Hack
ett. Make it go away PLEASE

Why? I want to watch it!

Easier if those that don’t want to see go away, surely?  

[StephenB]

He was brilliant. Anyone who wanted to escape could do - their loss though. Did you like anyone?
Team Ireland did good this year 🙂

[ColinB]

Rather a lovely tweet from Maddie Morris and there's a photo she took from the stage if you go on to her Twitter page. Must admit I haven't heard of her but I will have to give her music a listen.

[David V B]

What has happened to the reviews? It was always a great pleasure of TAW at Cropredy, lots of reviews of all the acts. Come on, folks - those of us who couldn’t get there are depending on you!

[davidmjs]

What has happened to the reviews? It was always a great pleasure of TAW at Cropredy, lots of reviews of all the acts. Come on, folks - those of us who couldn’t get there are depending on you!

It's hot.  Robert Fripp and Toyah did a Lenny Kravitz cover and Steve Hackett 'divided opinion'.  Oh and the queue for the bar is quite long.  I think that covers it...no?  

[StephenB]

And did we mention its hot. I mean, seriously too hot to do anything. I'm sure the reviews and opinions will follow in spades once the thunderstorms take over...

[Shane (Skirky)]

From the safety of Kirk Towers (quite the round trip yesterday) I can tell you that The Fairport Convention were on absolutely blistering form yesterday. I’ve not been to Cropredy, or caught the Wintour for some years now, but seeing the band in their natural constituency was an absolute treat and a privilege.
A very decent set selection led into the main reason for me being there - the Full House compendium (purists might argue about the inclusion of ‘Poor Will’ and ‘Flowers of the Forest’ but luckily there’s no-one like that around here, eh?). The field was absolutely full for the entire evening - perhaps because the signature ‘beat the queue’ anthem Matty Groves didn't appear, presumably due to time constraints. There was an onstage board meeting at one point where some toys nearly got thrown off the stage, but one might argue that fewer rambling stories about (say) getting a tattoo as part of your bucket list might have left room for more songs. Having said that, I wouldn’t have missed the ‘Flatback Caper’ intro for the world.
Sir Norm in fine, fine voice, DM reliably magnificent, Thompy on fire, and speaking of whom, what an opening set! Managing to transform ‘Genesis Hall’ into an audience call and response singalong, and hitting us with a triple whammy of the one about the motorbike, ‘Beeswing’ and ‘From Galway to Graceland’ (feat. Iain Matthews) meant that it was probably incipient hay fever making my eyes water like that.
As for the rest of the day, I wandered easily up to the bar throughout the day, and where there was a fine, old-school selection of TAWers ready to toast on the dot of half seven, but I was sorry to miss a couple of familiar faces through what I now know to be extenuating circumstances. Sympathies and best wishes, friends. Holy Moly and The Crackers were my highlight of the supporting cast, and my very best wishes to the (at my count) three successful proposals engineered over the course of the weekend.
And yes, it was hot.

[Sue & Chris]

I thought the first two thirds of Fairport's set was good - nice, varied song selection (always good to hear some Maart era stuff) and well played.  Full House was a bit chaotic - let's be generous and say it was a little under-rehearsed.  The closing double whammy of WKWTTG and Meet on Ledge was a very emotional moment for us (I suspect for a lot of people), having lost a good friend and regular Cropredy attender since the last event in 2019.  No Matty Groves (and even then they overran by 10 minutes), but that didn't really matter.  

I saw at least one video camera and mic set up in the field, so I'm sure it will all surface on YouTube soon.

[Sue & Chris]

Some thoughts about this years festival.  

Good things:

1)  We didn't burn the place down.
2)  The weather - yes it was very hot, but I'd take that over pelting down with rain any day.  And from about 7pm onwards it was very pleasant.
3)  The performances.  Some of the acts were not to my taste, but everyone put a shift in.  Turin Brakes veered closest to patronising 'isn't this quaint' territory, but were rescued by their drummer - apparently a Fairport fan and long time festival attendee.  Personal favourites were The Trevor Horn Band (brilliant entertainment, they overran by nearly 20 minutes but could have carried on all night as far as I was concerned), Home Service (pretty much the same set as last time, but great to see John Tams waving his walking stick about as he raged against the state we're in), Grand Slambovians (wasn't sure what to expect, but they were excellent), and Seth Lakeman (bossed the Digance slot, congratulations to whoever persuaded him to do it.)
4)  The bar - prefer the Hook Norton beers to Wadworths (especially since 6X disappeared), and props to them for apologising and sorting things out after making a complete mess of it on the Thursday.  
5)  The organisers and volunteers - massive well done to them all.

Room for improvement:

1)  Split screen effects on the big screen.  It seems that someone spotted the 'split screen' button on Saturday, and then got carried away.  If the purpose of the big screens is to enable those further back the field to see what's going on, what's the point of splitting the screen so that the images are not much bigger than the people on the stage?  Stop it.
2)  Garden parasols.  I know it was hot, and sunny, and that some people need shade, but some of these things were massive and being used quite near the front - they completely hid the stage for those behind.  I understand the reasons for it, but I don't have to like it.  
3)  Endless personal announcements from the stage.  It's lovely that some people were at their first Cropredy, or brought their baby, or got engaged, but I don't want to hear about it for five minutes between each band.  I felt sorry for Anthony John Clarke, it was clear he was fed up of it by Saturday as well.
4)  It was sad to see that it was necessary to put messages on the big screen asking people to be nice to the workers and volunteers.  I know it was hot, but what's happened to a bit of patience and understanding?  Having said that, thankfully it was largely all bonhomie and good will in our spot.

All in all, another great festival.  Looking forward to next year already!

[davidmjs]

Full House was a bit chaotic - let's be generous and say it was a little under-rehearsed.

I'm a bit surprised by this, although I do have my own reservations about the material I've already seen online and here myself.  I wonder if there were monitor issues...didn't get these sort of comments from the Tuesday warm-up?  Personally, having seen them do it all a few times, I've never known Fairport not get the old FH stuff bang on

[Sue & Chris]

Full House was a bit chaotic - let's be generous and say it was a little under-rehearsed.

I'm a bit surprised by this, although I do have my own reservations about the material I've already seen online and here myself.  I wonder if there were monitor issues...didn't get these sort of comments from the Tuesday warm-up?  Personally, having seen them do it all a few times, I've never known Fairport not get the old FH stuff bang on

Maybe, Simon was certainly having technical problems early on.  Perhaps they were a bit tired - they'd been onstage for well over an hour and a half by the time Full House started, and Peggy was sitting down for some of the time.  I also wonder if they were conscious of running over time (although they did anyway)?  It wasn't terrible or anything - obviously they know the material well and I enjoyed it, but just not quite on point as far as I'm concerned (others may of course disagree!)

[Poor Will (Bill)]

The Full House section was going along nicely, but it kind of fell apart a bit during Sir Patrick Spens and didn’t seem to fully recover.
There were obviously discussions of some sort going on on the stage, but from half way up the field it was impossible to see what was going on.
I assume that Marty Groves was dropped due to time restraints. (Either that or they saw the blisteringly good version by The Sandy Denny Project at the Brasenose on Wednesday and simply threw the towel in!🤣🤣🤣)