Fairport tour again in 2026 and are playing their annual Cropredy Convention in August, its 50th year. The rolling Kent landscape behind him, co-founder Simon Nicol looks back at almost six decades in the line-up, the first shows he ever saw and played, why he can’t wait to get back on the tour bus again, and …
… the intoxication of live music – “lost in a moment that’s never happened before and won’t be repeated”
… Count Basie at the Astoria, aged 7 – “the moulded Turkish ottomans! The massed ranks of brass!”
… December 4 1972, the day he left the band (and why)
… “we’ve been self-governing since we were kicked out in 1979”
… the Ravens in Muswell Hill the night they became the Kinks: “frock coats and hunting boots”
… Professor Bruce Lacey, the mad scientist-inventor celebrated in a Fairport song
… Ashley Hutchings’ Little Black Book where band line-ups were assembled: “like an executive chef who chose the ingredients but didn’t wash up”
… playing Mississippi Fred McDowell and country blues in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra
… narrative songs and the “shoulders-down” rhythms on Music From Big Pink and how Fairport found their identity
… finding obscure Phil Ochs, David Ackles and Joni Mitchell songs for early Fairport
… and the first Cropredy in the village hall in 1976: you can still arrive by barge!
Fairport Convention tour tickets here: https://www.fairportconvention.com/gigs-tours/
Cropredy 2026 tickets here: https://www.fairportconvention.com/tickets/
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