On Tuesday, February 20 they play Chequer Mead Theatre, East Grinstead, and then on Wednesday, February 21 they play the Connaught Theatre, Worthing, promising a mix of long-established Fairport favourites, plus some surprises from albums old and new.
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MusicTranscript
00:00 - Right. - Yeah.
00:01 - Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt,
00:03 Group Arts Editor at Sausage Newspapers.
00:05 Now, fantastic and exciting news,
00:08 Fairport Convention are heading back our way
00:10 with gigs at Chequermead, East Grinstead, February 20th,
00:14 Connell Theatre, Worthing, February 21st.
00:16 Dave, lovely to speak to Dave Pegg,
00:20 you've been there since 1969.
00:22 - Yes, all those years. - All those years.
00:26 And you were saying you were failing so many auditions.
00:29 Yet you passed the Fairport Convention audition late '69.
00:34 And they're ever since, a remarkable thing.
00:37 What, how do you explain that longevity for a band?
00:40 - Well, we've always had lots of creditors.
00:43 So we've had to keep going on the road, you know.
00:47 - The chase. - And with Fairport,
00:51 it's always been a bunch of mates
00:52 who enjoy getting up on stage and making music together.
00:56 That's, it's always been our kind of,
00:58 the highlight of our year is getting out and playing together.
01:04 It's always been that way.
01:06 And I think the fact that we've never had any great success
01:09 in terms of the charts or, you know,
01:12 sold millions of albums or CDs,
01:15 has meant that we've had to get in and out the van
01:17 a couple of times a year to pay the rent.
01:20 And that's kind of kept us able to play music
01:26 in my case, I'm 76 now, and I've been doing this since,
01:30 you know, since I was 19.
01:32 - So you've got the hang of it now?
01:34 - Well, I don't know about got the hang of it.
01:37 In fact, when I finish talking with you a good self-fill,
01:40 I'm going to have to get my bass out
01:43 and relearn some numbers for the upcoming Fairport tour
01:47 'cause some oldie has been put in the set.
01:49 And I listened to him last night
01:51 and I thought I'm going to have to practice those.
01:53 - They're not automatic then?
01:54 - No, they're not.
01:56 No, some of them are quite tricky.
01:58 I mean, a lot of them are automatic.
01:59 But when you think, "Oh, I know that,"
02:02 and then you get the bass set, you go, "Actually, I don't."
02:05 So we still have to do our homework.
02:09 It's not just, it's not like Mark Knopfler said,
02:14 you know, it is a job from time to time.
02:16 - Absolutely.
02:17 But it's incredible continuity, isn't it?
02:19 You cast your mind back to 1969.
02:21 Is the pleasure of being on the stage
02:23 just the same as it ever was?
02:25 When you get up there, you see the crowd?
02:27 - It is.
02:28 - Well, obviously.
02:29 - It's still great fun to do.
02:32 And it's got kind of, it's got more enjoyable
02:37 the way technologies come on in terms of sound
02:40 and stuff like that, you know.
02:41 And, you know, it's no longer a struggle.
02:44 And we have a really great crew
02:46 who kind of do everything for us apart from play.
02:50 I'm sure some of them are better than we are at playing.
02:52 I've heard, I've heard you turn up at sound check
02:56 and you hear the guys, you know, the backline chaps
03:00 just so-called checking the instruments.
03:02 You go, "Blimey, they're good."
03:03 - And you keep them, do you?
03:06 - Yeah, well, we keep them until they go off
03:09 and become pop stars in their own right.
03:11 Which just used to happen in the early days
03:14 when I was, you know, young bands,
03:17 certainly in Birmingham,
03:18 people like the Spencer Davis Group had,
03:21 who were one of my favourite bands,
03:24 was Steve Wynwood and Spencer Davis.
03:27 And one of their guys that they employed
03:28 as a roadie, Dave Mason, you know,
03:31 went on to become a member of Traffic.
03:34 So it does happen that sometimes guys doing the tech
03:39 or roadieing as it was known in those days,
03:42 went on to join bands.
03:45 - Fantastic, brilliant.
03:47 We'll have a very happy return to West Sussex,
03:50 February the 20th and 21st.
03:52 Checker Media's Grinstead, I'm Conor Worthing.
03:54 Dave, really lovely to speak to you again.
03:56 Thank you.
03:57 - I must mention, Nick, we've got a great opening duo called
04:01 because the Fairports,
04:04 the opening act do about half an hour,
04:08 Michelle and Nick do half an hour,
04:09 and then we join them and we do a song with them.
04:12 And the song we're going to do with them
04:14 is the title track of their new album, new CD.
04:17 - Oh, fantastic.
04:18 And what makes them special then?
04:20 - They're just, they're kind of a husband and wife
04:24 who've been doing, you know,
04:26 working together for a few years now.
04:28 They're from up north around Bradford way.
04:31 It's just great that all the songs are really good
04:35 and they're great players and they want to do this.
04:39 That's the thing.
04:40 So people that come into our gigs, get there early.
04:43 Don't miss them.
04:44 - Sounds a perfect combination.
04:47 Great to speak to you.
04:48 Thank you so much.
04:48 - Thank you, Phil.