So. That was my first Cropredy.
Gosh.
Compared with the Priddy's and Beardy's it feels huge, and much more like a Festival Festival. About 20,000 people go, and there's a single stage: your options are pretty much to find a spot, put your chair in it, and stay there from noon to midnight. Some of the old timers felt that the preponderance of camp chairs post Covid had slightly spoiled the vibe but I am not sure my legs could have stood standing up for thirty six hours.
The Bar Steward Sons of Val Doonican did all the same songs and all the same jokes they did at Beardy, but they did end up crowdsurfing on a rubber dingy. If you find songs called Lady In Greggs to the tune of Lady In Red funny then you certainly do.
Home Service? Did I mention Home Service? With that long, long anti-first-world-war song about the Scarecrows, and I'm All Right Jack about unemployment in probably Scotland and the Lincolnshire medley with a bit of Poacher Bold As I Unfold and the very long Sorrow which turns into Babylon is Fallen. And lots of John Tams talking about how terrible everything is between numbers. (John Tams thinks that everything is terrible, and Martyn Joseph looks at the young people and feels such hope and joy so I hope they had a chance to compare notes backstage.) And a brass band. I like it that Home Service leave the religious imagery in what is basically a religious song although I understand why Jim Moray changed it for his rocky cover. Sound the trumpet on mount Zion Christ is come a second time / ruling with a rod of iron all who now as foes combine / satan's garments we've rejected and our fellowship is sure... I expect Martyn Joseph would have liked that one. I think it opened the final at of the Mysteries at the National in the 80s.
But obviously, the point of the weekend is the last four hours; when Richard Thompson came and played for an hour (Beeswing, Galway to Graceland, Vincent Black Lightning) and then the current line up of Fairport played for the best part of three hours, with Thompson joining them for the complete 50th anniversary play through of Full House.
My basic error, which will be corrected if I go again, was to only venture into the village itself on Sunday morning after the festival proper was over. (I think, if one arrived sufficiently early, that it would be possible to camp opposite the cricket pitch. Yes, there is a cricket pitch, and a tea shop, and a church, and a war memorial. I didn't actually find a blacksmiths, but would not rule it out.) There were numerous flea-market and car boot type sales still going on. The village runs an annual Scarecrow competition, which this year was themed around the Queen, so many front gardens had effigies of Elizabeth II, Boadicea, Freddie Mercury and the Queen of Hearts in them. I believe the prize, or at least second prize, was won by an empty throne with a note saying "One has gone to feed ones corgis" pinned to it. There was also a full sized Dalek at the end of someone's path, which would certainly have scared any crows which happened to pass by. Next to the Dalek was a man selling the best coffee in the festival, who wanted to talk to me about the difference between a latte and a flat white, which other festival I had been to, and what kind of coffee was served at them.
I completed the weekend in the official fringe festival in the village pub. The scheduled singer (Vo Fletcher) sound checked on Woody Guthrie's You Ain't Got The Dough Ray Me which would have left me quite happy in itself, but he was rapidly joined on the small stage by at least two out of five Fairporters, doing an intimate post festival show in front of maybe a hundred people. So we did get to hear Matty Groves after all.
Interesting weekend. Global warming nearly killed us. (It was 31c. ) Would go again. But not next year because it clashes with Sidmouth.
Gosh.
Compared with the Priddy's and Beardy's it feels huge, and much more like a Festival Festival. About 20,000 people go, and there's a single stage: your options are pretty much to find a spot, put your chair in it, and stay there from noon to midnight. Some of the old timers felt that the preponderance of camp chairs post Covid had slightly spoiled the vibe but I am not sure my legs could have stood standing up for thirty six hours.
Very big festivals have plusses and minuses in terms of music. There is a huge empathy feedback loop around the biggest numbers -- when everyone in the field is equally caught up in (e.g) Trevor Horn doing Frankie Says Relax. But at the same time; there is a sense that Very Famous Bands are there to accompany a picnic, and you can't guarantee that the deckchairs behind you aren't going to have a homely chat or a domestic row just when Clannad are doing raaaaaaa bin therhoodedman. Which is the only one of theirs I know. (They also did Twa Sisters, which having been at Sidmouth only a few days before, I shall insist on referring to as Child 10, or merely 10.)
It is stunningly well organised. Glastonbury is admittedly ten times as big, but I recall being wrist banded, checked for contraband glass bottles, and then left to find my own camping spot in five miles of farm. Here, we were waved by a friendly usher to a pre-marked car and tent spot. The field was about ten minutes from the arena, although it felt further at 1AM when 20,000 people were going the same way and you'd had slightly more Hook Norton real ale and Goan fish curry than was strictly advisable. And the much spoken of friendliness seemed to be quite genuine: practically everyone you bumped into wanted to know if this was your first time or if you were a newbie, whether you had enjoyed the last act, what you thought of the coffee, etc. (A small problem at our end, where m'colleague had to leave early and get back onto the the camp sight to extract my tent was sorted out in three minutes with a walkie talkie and absolutely no fuss.)
The festival rituals, which I'm mostly unaware of, seemed fun and wholesome. It always starts with Festival Bell and always ends with Meet on the Ledge. This is apparently the first year they haven't played Matty Groves, due to mistiming the set. There is apparently a tradition that everyone waves their handkerchiefs at Richard Digance on Saturday morning, but he was unavailable this year; so everyone waved them at a slightly bemused Seth Lakeman instead. Seth Lakeman remains a musical blindspot for me, but he's a nice chap and the atmosphere was good.
It's by no means a full-on folk festival. We had the aforementioned Clannad, and Seth, and an astonishing set from my beloved Martyn Joseph. He offered a new song about how, as a Christian and a pacifist, he feels he could kill Vladimir Putin if he ever had the opportunity. I am deeply uncomfortable with this song, he said. And possibly my festival discovery was Maddie Morris, winner of the Radio 3 Young Folk Award back in the days when such a thing still existed. She started with Barbary Allen, ended with a rewrite of Haul Away Joe so the verses were about her terrible job and claiming universal credit. In between came some self written stuff about queer identity pitched somewhere between Grace Petrie and Laura Marling. But a lot of genres were represented: everyone enjoyed Trevor Horne performing Relax and Power of Love and Video Killed the Radio Star -- with walk ons from Toya, Robert Frith and (checks notes) Steve Hogarth (who sang something called Life On Mars). I had obviously never heard of Trevor Horne but he appears to know and have worked with absolutely everybody. ("So, I phoned up Tom Waits and said I'm producing an album for Rod Stewart...") I certainly admired Genesis Revisited without actually enjoying it, and am pleased to know that prog rock really does consist for forty minute tracks and twelve minute drum solos. The disgruntled folkie next to me was timing it. And I have made a mental note to go and hear the Shambovian Circus of Dreams -- somewhere between a parody of 1970s hippy psychedelia and actual psychedelia -- do a full gig the next time they are in my neck of the woods.
It's by no means a full-on folk festival. We had the aforementioned Clannad, and Seth, and an astonishing set from my beloved Martyn Joseph. He offered a new song about how, as a Christian and a pacifist, he feels he could kill Vladimir Putin if he ever had the opportunity. I am deeply uncomfortable with this song, he said. And possibly my festival discovery was Maddie Morris, winner of the Radio 3 Young Folk Award back in the days when such a thing still existed. She started with Barbary Allen, ended with a rewrite of Haul Away Joe so the verses were about her terrible job and claiming universal credit. In between came some self written stuff about queer identity pitched somewhere between Grace Petrie and Laura Marling. But a lot of genres were represented: everyone enjoyed Trevor Horne performing Relax and Power of Love and Video Killed the Radio Star -- with walk ons from Toya, Robert Frith and (checks notes) Steve Hogarth (who sang something called Life On Mars). I had obviously never heard of Trevor Horne but he appears to know and have worked with absolutely everybody. ("So, I phoned up Tom Waits and said I'm producing an album for Rod Stewart...") I certainly admired Genesis Revisited without actually enjoying it, and am pleased to know that prog rock really does consist for forty minute tracks and twelve minute drum solos. The disgruntled folkie next to me was timing it. And I have made a mental note to go and hear the Shambovian Circus of Dreams -- somewhere between a parody of 1970s hippy psychedelia and actual psychedelia -- do a full gig the next time they are in my neck of the woods.
The Bar Steward Sons of Val Doonican did all the same songs and all the same jokes they did at Beardy, but they did end up crowdsurfing on a rubber dingy. If you find songs called Lady In Greggs to the tune of Lady In Red funny then you certainly do.
Home Service? Did I mention Home Service? With that long, long anti-first-world-war song about the Scarecrows, and I'm All Right Jack about unemployment in probably Scotland and the Lincolnshire medley with a bit of Poacher Bold As I Unfold and the very long Sorrow which turns into Babylon is Fallen. And lots of John Tams talking about how terrible everything is between numbers. (John Tams thinks that everything is terrible, and Martyn Joseph looks at the young people and feels such hope and joy so I hope they had a chance to compare notes backstage.) And a brass band. I like it that Home Service leave the religious imagery in what is basically a religious song although I understand why Jim Moray changed it for his rocky cover. Sound the trumpet on mount Zion Christ is come a second time / ruling with a rod of iron all who now as foes combine / satan's garments we've rejected and our fellowship is sure... I expect Martyn Joseph would have liked that one. I think it opened the final at of the Mysteries at the National in the 80s.
But obviously, the point of the weekend is the last four hours; when Richard Thompson came and played for an hour (Beeswing, Galway to Graceland, Vincent Black Lightning) and then the current line up of Fairport played for the best part of three hours, with Thompson joining them for the complete 50th anniversary play through of Full House.
My basic error, which will be corrected if I go again, was to only venture into the village itself on Sunday morning after the festival proper was over. (I think, if one arrived sufficiently early, that it would be possible to camp opposite the cricket pitch. Yes, there is a cricket pitch, and a tea shop, and a church, and a war memorial. I didn't actually find a blacksmiths, but would not rule it out.) There were numerous flea-market and car boot type sales still going on. The village runs an annual Scarecrow competition, which this year was themed around the Queen, so many front gardens had effigies of Elizabeth II, Boadicea, Freddie Mercury and the Queen of Hearts in them. I believe the prize, or at least second prize, was won by an empty throne with a note saying "One has gone to feed ones corgis" pinned to it. There was also a full sized Dalek at the end of someone's path, which would certainly have scared any crows which happened to pass by. Next to the Dalek was a man selling the best coffee in the festival, who wanted to talk to me about the difference between a latte and a flat white, which other festival I had been to, and what kind of coffee was served at them.
I completed the weekend in the official fringe festival in the village pub. The scheduled singer (Vo Fletcher) sound checked on Woody Guthrie's You Ain't Got The Dough Ray Me which would have left me quite happy in itself, but he was rapidly joined on the small stage by at least two out of five Fairporters, doing an intimate post festival show in front of maybe a hundred people. So we did get to hear Matty Groves after all.
Interesting weekend. Global warming nearly killed us. (It was 31c. ) Would go again. But not next year because it clashes with Sidmouth.
No comments:
Post a Comment