Happy New Year, Fairporters
This is a very special year for us. It’s our forty-fifth anniversary - doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun? - and we’ll be celebrating it throughout 2012. We hope you’ll join us.
First off will be our Winter Tour which starts in Oxford on 21 January and runs through to 10 March. We’ll be playing nearly forty concerts throughout the land and the list of venues and dates is below. We are really looking forward to seeing you all again so do come along for an evening of music and a natter with us in the bar.
We know you’ll love Kieran Goss, our special guest on this year’s tour. Kieran is one of Ireland’s best-loved singer-songwriters and has supported Elvis Costello, Christy Moore and Joe Jackson among many others as well as filling concert halls in his own right. He has half-a-dozen albums and a top-ten chart single to his credit.
Concert tickets are still available at many of the venues but they’re selling fast so don’t delay - pick up the phone today to avoid disappointment.
Date Town Venue Box Office
21/01 Oxford The Playhouse Theatre 01865 305 305
25/01 Tewkesbury The Roses Theatre 01684 295074
26/01 Salisbury The City Hall 01722 434434
27/01 Basingstoke The Anvil 01256 844244
28/01 Leamington Spa Royal Spa Centre 01926 334418
29/01 Exeter The Corn Exchange 01392 665938
31/01 Yeovil The Octagon 01935 422884
01/02 Truro Hall For Cornwall 01872 262466
02/02 Croydon The Fairfield Hall 0208 6889291
03/02 Lincoln The Drill Hall 01522 873894
04/02 Manchester The Lowry 0843 2086000
07/02 Southend The Palace 01702 351135
08/02 High Wycombe The Swan 01494 512000
09/02 Bury St. Edmunds Apex Theatre 01284 758000
10/02 Tunbridge Wells Assembly Rooms 01892 530613
11/02 Margate Theatre Royal 08451 301786
14/02 St. Albans The Arena 01727 844488
16/02 Weston-Super-Mare Playhouse 01934 645544
17/02 Farnham The Maltings 01252 745444
18/02 Milton Keynes The Stables 01908 280800
19/02 Hayes The Beck Theatre 0208 5618371
21/02 Shrewsbury Theatre Severn 01743 281281
22/02 Burnley The Mechanics 01282 664400
23/02 Crosby Civic Centre 0151 9281919
24/02 Stafford The Gatehouse Theatre 01785 254653
25/02 Leeds City Varieties 0113 2430808
26/02 Gateshead The Sage (Hall 2) 0191 4434661
27/02 Kinross The Green Hotel 01577 863467
28/02 Edinburgh The Queens Hall 0131 6682019
29/02 Chesterfield Winding Wheel 01246 345334
01/03 Kendal Brewery Arts Centre 01539 725133
02/03 Swindon Wyvern Theatre 01793 524481
03/03 Chichester The Venue 01243 781312
04/03 Cromer The Pavilion 01263 512495
05/03 Dorking Dorking Halls 01306 881717
06/03 Colchester The Arts centre 01206 500900
08/03 Pontardawe The Arts Centre 01792 863722
09/03 Birmingham Town Hall, Birmingham 0121 7803333
10/03 London The Union Chapel 0207 2261686
Two New Albums!
To get 2012 off to a flying start, we are releasing two brand new CDs as part of our anniversary bash.
By Popular Request is a studio album featuring brand new versions of Fairport’s most popular songs from the past 45 years. But this isn’t just any old ‘greatest hits’ compilation - the selection of songs was chosen by you Fairporters. Lots of you submitted your individual top twenties from our repertoire and we recorded the dozen most popular for this album. Even if we say so ourselves, we’re delighted with the result - a well-deserved tip of the hat to our recording engineer John Gale.
The second anniversary CD release revives one of our most popular musical projects. Last year, you may recall, was the fortieth anniversary of Babbacombe Lee, our 1971 folkrock opera. To mark the occasion, we performed the work in its entirety at every concert on last year’s Winter Tour. Those performances were recorded and we’ve picked the cream of them for Babbacombe Lee Live Again, an all-new live version of the original album.
You can order both albums now from our online shop and we’ll also have copies for sale at all the Winter Tour concerts.
Cropredy 2012
Fairport’s Cropredy Convention will also reflect our forty-fifth anniversary with plenty of special guests and Fairport alumni in attendance (for example, Richard Thompson will be playing a set this year). We’ll be announcing the line-up soon so keep an eye on our website. The festival dates this year are 9, 10, 11 August and our renowned pre-Cropredy warm-up gigs will be on 6 and 7 August. The Cropredy box office opens on 1 March and, as always, you’ll be able to buy tickets online from our website.
BBC Four Documentary
Talking of celebrations, we are delighted that Fairport’s 45 years is to feature in a major television documentary. The programme is in preparation as we write and it will be screened on BBC Four during 2012. Some of the footage was shot at last year’s Cropredy so you might even see yourselves on telly! We don’t know the transmission date yet but as soon as we do we’ll let you know - again, watch our website.
Hope to see you at one of our gigs,
Cheers!
Simon, Peggy, Ric, Chris and Gerry.
PS: don’t forget to visit our online home - you know where we live.
Leave a Reply