Fairport's Cropredy Convention – Day 3

I was woken during the night by very strong winds. I knew my tent would survive, but it was whipping about a bit, which meant that I didn't get a very good sleep. I got up about 6 and had a shower, it was still windy and some people were starting to pack up and I saw a number of tents in a sorry state.

For some reason I was feeling really down and seriously felt like packing up and going home. I knew the mood would pass, so I had breakfast and went for a walk along the canal and back through Cropredy.

Only in Cropredy would you see a bicycle drawn record shop - it's that sort of place!

I got back to the campsite about 9 and had a sleep for a couple of hours in the car as my tent was still flapping about a bit. More tents had collapsed and there were a number of spaces where people had left. I made my way down to the performance field to find a crowd waiting. Due to the high wind, the opening of the field had been delayed for 45 minutes for checks on the stage and lighting to see if it was safe to proceed. Eventually the crowd was let in and announcements were made saying that the crew had been working on the stage since 4 am to get it ready and the Safety People had given the OK for the Festival to continue. A number of the food and clothing stall looked a bit worse for wear and apparently a caravan had blown over!

As they were running a bit late the first act came straight on and the festival was back on.

 Richard Digance - has opened the Saturday session at Cropredy for the last 16 years!

Daphne's Flight 

Tide Lines - young band from the Highlands showing there's not enough bagpipes in rock music! 

Only really bad band at Cropredy - Zal Cleminson's /sin'dogs/ (that's how they write it.) I'd seen Zal over 40 years ago with The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. SAHBs were a really interesting band, they took music from a wide range of backgrounds, Jacques Brel, stage musicals, etc and performed then in a rock vein. I was expecting something similar, but the /sin'dogs/ were just a really poor heavy metal band. I texted a friend saying there was a 'Spinal Tap tribute band' on stage, but at least Spinal Tap had a sense of humour! It gave me an excuse to go for a walk and look at other things.

 Martin Barre Band. They were billed as 'plays 50 years of Jethro Tull'. Martin had been a member of Jethro Tull for about 50 years, so I expected a sort of 'tribute band'. However, they performed modern interpretations of Jethro Tull songs and were much better than expected. Band included ex-Jethro Tull members Clive Bunker on drums and Dee (formerly David) Bedford on keyboards, and Fairport's Dave Pegg, himself ex-Jethro Tull joined them on stage for a couple of songs. 

 Martin Simpson

I had filmed a number of acts with a GoPro clone action camera but it hadn't really worked out as the lens is too wide and the microphone a bit poor. During Martin's set I filmed him using the video function of my still camera and was very impressed with the result.

Now was time for the hosts, Fairport Convention to close the festival. They played a two and a half hour set and invited a number of guests they had played with over the years onto the stage.

 Cropredy residents Joe Brown and a fiddle player who's name I didn't catch joined them for a couple of songs.

At the end of their set all the guests joined them for a traditional singalong version of 

'Meet on the Ledge'.

After that we all made our way back to our tents for a well deserved rest - it had been a long but enjoyable 3 days!