This Sunday, iconic folk group Fairport Convention will celebrate their golden anniversary with a show at Camp & Furnace in Liverpool.
The folk-rock heroes will be marking 50 years of performances in 2017 with an extensive series of dates and the release of ’50:50@50? which will feature new original songs and live recordings of various fan favourites.
The winter tour will see the band playing a selection of tracks from the new record, alongside established hits from their ever-growing repertoire.
Founding member Simon Nicol hasn’t lost the buzz of performing even after a half-century of tours. “Fairport Convention have been extraordinarily fortunate to create a work ethic based on live performance” says Nicol. “As someone whose hobby ultimately became a career, I’m happy every time the van pulls up outside my house to take me off on my travels, where the stage awaits, and I get a chance to make everyone happy that they made the choice to buy a ticket.”
The group, who revolutionised British folk music with their electric folk sound in the summer of love of 1967, has survived numerous lineup changes over the decades and still performs with the passion and precision their reputation demand.
It’s not just the audiences who keep coming, Fairport Convention still attract critical acclaim and won a coveted BBC Lifetime Achievement Award at the turn of the century. Radio 2 listeners also voted one of British folk music’s high water marks – the groundbreaking album ‘Liege & Lief’ – ‘The Most Influential Folk Album of All Time’ around the same time and the band still play many songs from the disc during their performances.
Fairport Convention’s current line-up is the longest running in the band’s history, and with Simon Nicol on guitar and vocals, Dave Pegg on bass guitar, Chris Leslie on fiddle, mandolin and vocals, Ric Sanders on violin and Gerry Conway on drums and percussion, audiences across the land will be in safe hands for an unforgettable night of folk history.
Opening the concerts on this celebratory tour will be Sally Barker – all-girl folk group The Poozies, and 2014 runner up in BBC TV’s ‘The Voice’.
The band will play Liverpool’s Camp & Furnace on Sunday 29th January, 2017. Tickets are on sale now at Skiddle.com
“Impressive musicians with a great back catalogue… (they) take chances and clearly enjoy themselves” The Guardian
“Vigorous and confident…the music leapt around the room” The Mirror
Preview: Fairport Convention Golden Anniversary tour @ Camp and Furnace 29/01/17