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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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FESTIVAL
SPECIAL by Nick Morgan
FAIRPORT'S CROPREDY
Cropredy, Oxfordshire,
August 8th and 9th 2008 |
| Ok
Serge, let me start by explaining about the new
Whiskyfun Festival Van, although I have to say I’m
still at a bit of a loss to understand exactly what
happened. We were testing out the kitchen gear,
and what better way, I thought, than by turning
out my Signature Festival Dish, Pork Pie Flambe
avec Chips? It was going pretty well, and I honestly
do believe that the recipe (I used to have one somewhere)
said use a cupful of cask strength whisky for the
flambé (I’d chosen a lovely 22-year-old
Rare Malt Mortlach, which at 65.3% looked as though
it would do the job). It certainly did, and by the
time the flames hit the chip pan I knew that perhaps
I’d been a bit heavy-handed with the whisky
(next time I might try a Willie Dixon spoonful).
Anyway, the long and short of it is that the van’s
getting what you might call a bit of a facelift,
and that we headed off to Cropredy sans luxury accommodation,
with the emergency Whiskyfun tent in the back of
the car, to spend a couple of days with the hoi
polloi at ‘Britain’s Friendliest Music
Festival”. |
 |
| We
passed on Thursday – just as well as it rained
very heavily meaning that the site was already pretty
wet and muddy when we turned up and pitched tent
on Friday, just in time for lunch. That meant that
we missed Supergrass, who had headlined the night
before. “Who?” asked on my on site informant,
who we’ll simply call Muddy B, when I quizzed
him about the previous night’s performance,
“Who were they?” he persisted, which
I think speaks for itself. Of course like many fellow
festival-goers he spent much of the three days sheltering
from the weather in Cropredy’s Brasenose Arms
and Red Lion. Thankfully, muddy though it was, Friday
evening was rain-free. So we avoided the pub, and
after a delicious Cornish
Goan Fish Curry (a wonderful newcomer to the
food purveyors here) got stuck to a spot in the
muddy mosh, and enjoyed the company of some largely
entertaining Cropredy veterans, many of whom had
(of course) brought their beer with them in weather-proof
containers. |
| I
have to say I often think that for all the gate
money they must take (this year’s close to
another sell out, that’s twenty thousand people
at something like eighty quids each, which adds
up to, well, a lot of dosh) the organisers are a
trifle stingy when it comes to booking bands. I
know a huge amount must be invested in the infrastructure
which is pretty good, but there’s a vast over-reliance
on local acts of sometimes questionable talents
and abilities. Anyway, Friday night is pretty good.
We catch the end of Stackridge’s
set – remember Stackridge? They’re famous
for opening the first ever Glastonbury Festival
in 1970, and the original line-up has reformed for
the first time since the mid-seventies. Their style
was an eccentric west-country melange of progressive
rock, folk and end-of-the-pier music-hall. It still
sounds the same and I have to say it’s very
dated stuff, but good enough for the folks madly
waving sticks of rhubarb at the front (I did say
eccentric didn’t I?). |
| After
some lengthy chit-chat from compere Whispering Bob
Harris (the one-time Old Grey Whistle Test presenter
and radio DJ), Paul
Brady takes the stage. Brady emerged
from the Dublin folk scene in the 1970s, and had
a spell with Planxty and a while in a duo with Andy
Irvine before launching into a solo career, marked
by some outstanding albums of which Back to the
Centre, which provides at least three of the evening’s
songs, is perhaps the best known. He has also developed
something of a reputation as a prized collaborator,
partly due to his outstanding vocal performances.
And his singing is on top form here – he’s
got a very good band, and an outstanding guitarist
in Bill
Shanley (I’ll ignore the fact that Bill
also plays in Gilbert O’Sullivan’s backing
band), particularly when he gets going on his Gretsch
Tennessee Rose. |
Paul
Brady |
| But
for all that I have to observe that Brady’s
new songs (like ‘Say what you feel’.
‘Oh what a world’ and ‘The long
goodbye’) are weak compared with tunes like
‘Follow on’ and of course his very famous
‘The island’. It’s almost like
his been back pedalling since I last saw him over
ten years ago. But it’s a good set, finishing
with a moving ‘Homes of Donegal’. |
 |
Dave
Edmunds (L) and Joe Brown (R) |
| Readers
may remember that when we last saw Joe
Brown he literally had the power cut
on him in Bermondsey Park. Tonight he’s here
with his band (yes – it’s the Bruvvers)
– who have recently earned quite a reputation
after barnstorming Glastonbury a few years ago with
his charming and very good-humoured mixture of Americana,
roots and rockabilly. At the start of their set
the band seem a little unsure of how they’ll
be received, but I can tell you that everyone loved
every minute of it. Brown showed unexpected dexterity
on guitars, mandolin and fiddle, and his band (featuring
his son on guitars and mandolin) were equally accomplished
both in their playing and their delicate backing
vocals and harmonies. Brown, you may recall, was
one of the UK’s earliest rock and rollers,
who then made a name as a novelty act ("I'm
Henry The Eighth"), performing in TV light
entertainment shows and pantomimes. But he’s
reearned his spurs, to the extent that his special
guest is one of the UK’s greatest unreformed
rock and rollers, the rather reclusive (he doesn’t
even have a website) Dave Edmunds. Edmunds joined
Brown for a couple of tunes (‘The winner loses
all’) and then finger-picked his way with
adroitness through ‘Lady Madonna’ ‘Cut
across shorty’ and ‘Classical gas’
before being joined by the band for an energetic
run-through of some of his hits, including ‘Queen
of hearts’, ‘I knew the bride’,
and ‘I hear you knocking’. Believe me,
no one plays a bashed up customised Fender Telecaster
quite like Mr Edmunds. Later he joined Brown again
for songs like ‘Yellow dog blues’ and
‘Girl’s talk’. But it’s
Brown’s show, which he ends strumming his
ukulele with ‘I’ll see you in my dreams’.
He also had one of the best jokes of the night.
“I expect you’re wondering what I’m
doing here surrounded by all of these guitars. Well
you lot paid for ‘em so I though you might
like to take a look’. Great stuff. |
| Following
Brown were the
Levellers, much more powerful and effective
in this setting than in a two-thirds empty Brixton
Academy a few months ago. They played with verve
and vigour (and a very effective light and projection
show), and were it not for the fact that after about
six tunes all the songs sounded exactly the same
(and were played at the same relentless frenetic
tempo – hang on, am I showing my age?), and
that the crowd around us were going beery-bonkers,
we might have stayed to the end. As it was we navigated
our way through the mud and back to base camp for
a drop of Scotland’s midnight wine, to wait
for whatever the weather would throw at us. |
 |
| And
sadly that was it. It rained so much the following
morning, and the forecast was so bad, that we cut
our losses, raised camp, left the soggy tent in
the barn of a local friendly farmer to dry, and
headed back to the Smoke, leaving the more hardy
to the sea of mud that beckoned. We’ve done
it before – you don’t really need to
earn your medals twice do you? |
| Muddy
B stayed, and here are his brief views on what we
missed. Zappa tribute band the Muffin
Men, “enjoyable” and Julie
Fowlis (whom we saw singing a couple of songs
in the Rogue’s Gallery show) “superb
- despite singing exclusively in the Gaelic”.
Muddy missed Midge
Ure (who anyway frankly, like Vienna, means
nothing to me) because it was raining so hard he
went back to the Brasenose, and had this to say
about Fairport
Convention: “some good stuff here, but
found the Sandy Denny obsession a bit of a drag.
She's been dead for 30 years, and to devote a five-song
session to her, reliving some of her songs (without
any great signs of having re-worked them to reflect
where the band is at now) was a bit like an audio
mausoleum”. Muddy also seemed to miss out
the fact that Robert Plant joined them for ‘Battle
of Evermore’. And here is his rather sad conclusion
on the whole weekend – “last year was
special, this year less so. It almost felt as though
the whole idea had got tired, and they didn't even
allow an unaccompanied crowd-only chorus in ‘Meet
on the ledge”, a pity as it's a genuinely
moving moment”. Well I have to say we did,
sitting in the warm, on a dry sofa singing it down
the ‘phone to Jozzer and his doll, which was
a genuinely moving moment for us, if not them. And
next year – who knows? It depends if we can
get the van fixed. - Nick Morgan (photographs
by Kate and Nick's iPhone) |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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