This Friday, Fairport Convention kick off their Autumn tour starting in Lowdham’s The Village Hall on Friday, October 6th; the nationwide tour will take in 25 dates across England, Scotland and Wales before winding up at The Exchange in Twickenham on Saturday, 4th November (see dates below).
Simon Nicol of Fairport shared the following:
“As ever, the excitement steadily grows as Cropredy weekend looms larger in the calendar: without doubt, it is the personal highlight of the year for each of us in the band as well as for many of the regular attendees. Who will deliver the greatest surprise? Whose performance will live longest in the memory? Will there be an actual “you had to be there….” moment?
“All the build-up and then suddenly the moment is gone, and we have another twelve months to wait – but the batteries have been recharged, and the level of love for all things Fairport is polished like the trophy it is.
When October comes round, we’ll be regrouping and returning to our natural home – the van on a motorway somewhere, back on the road and touring our music on smaller stages around the country, revisiting favourites and making new ones, seeing old friends and eating and drinking in favourite watering holes: returning in a small way the love people bring from their home towns to the Brigadoon which is the Festival site of Cropredy. We hope you can come and join the fun and enjoy the songs, old and new.”
Featuring the well-known faces of Simon Nicol on guitar and vocals, Dave Pegg on bass guitar and vocals, Ric Sanders on violin, and Chris Leslie on bouzouki, mandolin, banjo, fiddle and vocals, their last studio album, Shuffle and Go, released in 2020, was very well received. It was reviewed here by Folk Radio’s David Kidman, who concluded:
Shuffle And Go is another solid, and solidly desirable entry in the Fairport canon. For the vintage Fairport fans (and I mean that in the kindest sense), there may be no strictly-“trad-arr Fairport” here, but the wonderful music on this album is firmly in what has come to be regarded as the “latter-day Fairport tradition”.
Previously, on Folk Radio
Rewind: Steeleye Span & Fairport Convention on Ainsdale beach (1971).
In 1971, Granada TV decided to make a special 30-minute concert on Ainsdale Beach featuring Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. Steeleye featured Peter Knight, Tim Hart, Maddy Prior, Ashley Hutchings and Martin Carthy, and Fairport featured the late great Dave Swarbrick, Dave Mattacks (who reunited with the band earlier this year for their winter tour) – and, of course, Dave Pegg and Simon Nicol.
Steeleye Span kicked off the set, opening to The Lark in the Morning from their then-new album Please to See the King before a very laid-back Ashley Hutchings introduces a set of Irish reels in as few words as possible (believed to be – Dowd’s Favourite / £10 Float / The Morning Dew). They end on another track from their new album, The Female Drummer. Hutchings shares that the song is from Yorkshire, “from the singing of The Watersons, that’s where we got it”.(read our detailed article here). Fairport then took to the stage with Angel Delight – the song is named after ‘The Angel’, a former pub based in middle-class Little Hadham, Hertfordshire. It was also their home – a hippie folk commune complete with roadies. They all have a lot to be happy about, as a few months prior, a Dutch lorry driver dozed off at the wheel and drove through their dwelling. The driver was killed, but luckily, no one else was – including a fortunate Dave Swarbrick, who had decided to change bedrooms the night before.
They follow with the traditional tune, Bridge Over the River Ash, also from their Angel Delight album, over which they trade banter, including the tongue-in-cheek warning “watch what you say, we haven’t been paid yet”. A Bob Dylan cover follows with Country Pie before their Angel Delight finale, The Journeyman’s Grace.
You can find the full article on Ainsdale beach 1971 here:
Fairport Convention Autumn Tour Dates
Fri, 06th Oct 2023
Lowdham
Village Hall – TICKETS
Sat, 07th Oct 2023
Boston
Blackfriars Arts Centre – TICKETS
Sun, 08th Oct 2023
Goole
Junction – TICKETS
Mon, 09th Oct 2023
Banbury
The Mill – TICKETS
Wed, 11th Oct 2023
Maidenhead
Norden Farm – TICKETS
Thu, 12th Oct 2023
Leek
Foxlowe Arts Centre – TICKETS
Fri, 13th Oct 2023
Masham
Town Hall – TICKETS
Sat, 14th Oct 2023
Settle
Victoria Hall – TICKETS
Sun, 15th Oct 2023
Melbourne
Assembly Rooms – TICKETS
Wed, 18th Oct 2023
Cirencester
Sundial Theatre – TICKETS
Thu, 19th Oct 2023
Pentyrch
Acapela Studio – SOLD OUT!
Fri 20th Oct 2023
Honiton
The Beehive – TICKETS
Sat, 21st Oct 2023
Sheffield Green
Trading Boundaries – TICKETS
Sun, 22nd Oct 2023
Canterbury
Chilham Village Hall – TICKETS
Tue, 24th Oct 2023
Sheffield
Crookes Club – TICKETS
Wed, 25th Oct 2023
Leeds
City Varieties Music Hall – TICKETS
Thu, 26th Oct 2023
Carlisle
Old Fire Station – TICKETS
Fri, 27th Oct 2023
Hexham
Queen’s Hall – TICKETS
Sat, 28th Oct 2023
Berwick upon Tweed
The Maltings – TICKETS
Sun, 29th Oct 2023
Edinburgh
Queen’s Hall – TICKETS
Tue, 31st Oct 2023
Cambridge
Junction – TICKETS
Wed, 01st Nov 2023
Cromer
Cromer Pier – TICKETS
Thu, 02nd Nov 2023
Aldeburgh
Jubilee Hall – TICKETS
Fri, 03rd Nov 2023
Hertford
St Andrews Church – TICKETS
Sat, 04th Nov 2023
Twickenham
The Exchange – TICKETS