FG UK Meet 2008

[buttercup]

[pinkchick]

Originally Posted by spot

Experience shows that the problem with arranging an FG meet is that there's so much hesitancy about when and where. This one's different. This post announces the ten week countdown to the FG UK Meet 2008. You'll need:

• A sleeping bag and toothbrush
• Transport to and from the Cropredy Music Festival
• The afternoon onward of Thursday 7, all of Friday 8 and Saturday 9 August 2008 and Sunday morning to pack up and head homeward.

If you bring a tent too then that helps but there's a few spare tents around, don't let that stop you.

The venue is easily reached by road (M40 J11) or train (Banbury and the laid-on festival bus).

ForumGarden promises good weather.

For one reason or another, I totally missed this thread!
I would love to attend but a nasty doctor will be sticking a rather large needle in my spine on the 8th!
Have a few drinkies for me please

[spot]

Originally Posted by pinkchick

I would love to attend but a nasty doctor will be sticking a rather large needle in my spine on the 8th!

We could relocate the meet so long as we can help. I've lots of large needles and everyone else can bring at least one. Who needs doctors?

[pinkchick]

Originally Posted by spot

We could relocate the meet so long as we can help. I've lots of large needles and everyone else can bring at least one. Who needs doctors?

Ooooooohhhhh..... tempting!
I only need one needle (thank heaven)
There is room for about 3 tents in my garden
Any idea where we could put the musicians?

[spot]

I seem to be the first to write up the 2008 FG UK gathering, I hope there'll be more reports to the thread but here's mine to start it off. Ladies and gentlemen, I take particular delight in announcing that the Third FG UK meet was a resounding success. The weather, admittedly, had a few drizzly moments but the sun came out, the field was awash with music and the mud didn't really bother us at all.

I was there by two on Thursday in good time to pitch close to the low level ticket exchange, not a bad part of the campsite since it was flat, fifty yards from a beer tent and close to the performance field entrance. The Cropredy Festival only runs to a single stage - a definite asset, that. There's six hours' on stage for the first day, then twelve for the next two, that's twenty four hours' performance time in three days once you take out the set changes which average twenty minutes. I'm not sure I can stay on my feet longer than that.

Thursday began with this year's Fairport Tour warm-up chap, Anthony John Clarke, an Irish fellow with a couple of women to help him out instrumentally because he can only play the guitar. He'd compered last year and played a bit, he was a lot more engaged this time with a solid set to get through and he did a grand job. The keyboard player was - I hope I got this right - Elizabeth van de Waal (who's a head teacher during the week) and the violinist was Rachel Hall and they were both well up to it. Dave Pegg, the Fairport bass guitarist, was out in the field to enjoy the set and Anthony John was there on the rail for Peggy's on Friday, both of them having a great time chatting to their neighbours. It's one of the things about Cropredy, the players mixing with everyone on the field so readily.

I hadn't managed to find any other FGers by the time John Tams and Barry Coope came on so I got another 6X (a very palatable pint it was too, as were they all) without them and went back to the rail for their hour and a bit. In all these years of seeing people perform I'd never, somehow, managed to see John Tams before. He's totally engaging, utterly political and the further into the set he got the more he pruned down to essentials. First the harmonica went, then the guitar went, he ran the last half hour singing with Mr Coope's keyboard getting further into the background. I suspect none of that's true, I suspect that what happened was me getting drawn further into the songs as the set progressed and it was a matter of focus. I honestly couldn't join in with any of the audience participation bits, I was closer to crying than singing even on something as simple as Rolling Home[1]. Steelos worked beautifully alongside Lucifer and Vulcan but it was the war songs that got into everyone's throat.

For some reason Thursday finished with a high-school boy-band calling themselves Supergrass who appear to have written four songs and stretched them out into nine, goodness knows how they managed to get booked.



[1] That Youtube clip's actually Status Quo's version rather than John Tams'. Youtube doesn't have John Tams doing it and the Quo video's seriously disturbing even though it's over 20 years old. They'd never get away with that these days. Status Quo weren't at Cropredy.

[jimbo]

who went to the meet up any photo's

[spot]

Originally Posted by jimbo

who went to the meet up any photo's

You want photos?? Yes I've photos, I'll try posting them.

I'm not totally sure who of the rest of FG turned up, we never did get to find each other.

[Kathy Ellen]

Sounds wonderful Spot. Did you meet up any FG'ers at all. Did anyone else say they were going??

[spot]

Originally Posted by Kathy Ellen

Sounds wonderful Spot. Did you meet up any FG'ers at all. Did anyone else say they were going??

Well... no, not exactly. Not as such. Not as firm as "I'm going", but I'm sure there were quite a few. They'll add to the thread in a bit I expect.

[jimbo]

Originally Posted by spot

You want photos?? Yes I've photos, I'll try posting them.

I'm not totally sure who of the rest of FG turned up, we never did get to find each other.

so it was the non meet up meet up ,i'm coming to the next one ,i'm not so good at meeting people