TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Basically, Cropredy always was the one place where I'd ever see a Fairport t-shirt/etc. Or some other gig of course, but never anywhere else. Though I'd probably -against my nature- jump at anyone wearing it, because such people are usually instantly interesting.
Wondering whether anyone ever had odd encounters because of wearing Fairporty attire? I'll kick off --

I had this very long holiday in 1991 where I headed for Ireland for a couple of months and came over to Cropredy in between. About a week after my return to Ireland, I was in a place called Bantry in the south west, wearing a newly acquired Fairport sweatshirt - black with some kind of drawing on it.
I was walking down Bantry's main street there when suddenly I was stopped by an Irishman, who looked at the shirt - saying 'Fairport Convention... aaah that brings back memories! They had a singer who died, what was the name - ah yes - Steve Marriott, bless him!'. Before I could say 'err, nooo!' he hugged me, wishing me a good life and walked away.

Then on another occasion, in 1994, I was again in Ireland, in september. Camping at a *very* lone spot on the west Donegal coast... awesome scenery, it was the next bay north of Glencolumbkille which is kinda touristy itself (well, touristy meaning that they had a camping, a youth hostel and a laundrette). The place I was camping was north of that, I arrived there after walking 5 miles on a completely deserted & crumbling road leading to this completely deserted but awesome bay with only a few ruins of fishermans cottages. I set up my tent there and I never saw a soul that whole day - the place seemed completely hidden from the rest of the world.
Until about 5pm, a car drove down to the sea front - which to my amazement had a dutch number plate. I said hi to them, an older guy with 2 sons... the former noticed I was wearing a Fairport Tshirt (I actually don't wear these things often at all, but I did on the occasions I am describing!).
He said 'my God, do they still exist? I used to be very much into them when I was younger'... I told him that they are still performing and having a big festival every year, where I had been to the previous month. He then asked 'is Sandy Denny still with them? I always loved her vocals'.
The man was *genuinely* upset when I broke the news that Sandy had passed away 16 years previously - he just never knew, raised a family and completely lost touch with music. As it began to pour down with rain while it started getting dark, we were all sitting in the back of his station wagon, drinking whiskey, eating frankfurter sausages and listening to one of my walkman tapes, while talking music. One very vivid Fairport related memory, that - even though it has but a tedious actual Fairport link!
The father and his 2 sons camped there overnight as well and gave me a lift the next day - still my tape was in the car stereo... it was mighty fun driving on these completely deserted Donegal roads in pouring rain and stormy wind - with Morris On's Princess Royal on the cassette player blasting out at full force, in a try for the music to be louder than the already very loud noise of the rain & storm. Fantastic :-)

I was walking down the street passing the local rock pub,with my then girlfriend,both of us wearing the 2005 Cropredy shirt.A voice said 'Nice shirt!' I turned to see a little guy with a big grin.He said 'Are you on Talkawhile?' I confirmed I was.His grin became wider,he stuck out his hand and said 'Big Dave!'

God bless him.

Oh I can just imagine his face as he said this...  the first time we met him was when he jumped onto the boat at Crop and announced himself.. !!!

Good thread Koen.
It's probably an inverted snobbery thing but I don't wear Fairport T shirts to Cropredy and very rarely to gigs, the 2 remaining ones I have get worn at home, down the pub etc.
However I joined a band 4 months ish ago and at an early rehearsal had a Fairport Cropredy '93 T shirt on, cos it's what i'd been wearing all day. The lead guitarist had brought a RT song  for us  to work on and the bass player, a mere slip of a lad of 47, said who's Richard Thompson. The T shirt then became a historical guide. He had no idea RT had been in Fairport, why should he, he'd have been 4! :o

The t-shirt that elicited the most favourable response for me at Cropredy was the Mott the Hoople reunion t shirt. Admittedly there were several other people wearing one in the Summer of 2010 and we all seemed to smile and swap memories of the gigs. But it prompted lots of other people to comment too. (I suppose a Fairport t shirt Cropredy is not much of a talking point!)

I got quite an intriguing response when I wore a Cropredy t shirt at Moseley Folk Festival last year, though. Musicians asked me how they could go about getting a booked for Cropredy, one of the catering guys asked me how he could get a stall there, several people came up to me to ask about camping facilities and others came up to me with other Cropredy-related queries. I'm not sure if people thought I was involved in the festival in some way or if I just looked friendly and approachable for gleaning random Cropredy information...

I wear cropredy t shirts 80% of the time and they never fail to get a response.. From fallen by the wayside fans to young people (Urgggh who are they then ?? is the question) I have never had that sort of response for "other t shirts" that I may have sported (Well except for Nottingham Forest shirts when every one falls about laughing !!!)  and tbh If someone is trying to see me "well look for the Tshirt" always works  [;-) :D

good thread  ;D

I remember the day after I'd seen Fairport on the Wintour in 2010, it was a non-uniform day (I was still in school, obviously) and I wore the wintour T-Shirt. My then English teacher who went on to be my Media teacher for two years in sixth form looked across the room at me, and said "Is that Fairport Convention I see on your T-Shirt? I saw Fairport Convention in Knebworth in 1979 supporting Led Zeppelin." Turns out that she too is a massive Folky and occasionally goes to my local folk club. She had previously been to Beautiful Days and Green Man Festival, and long story short I managed to convince her to go to Cropredy. She's been every year since and we still keep in touch.

I wore one many years ago to a gig in West Belfast, which is an area not not renowned for its allegiance to anything British - was approached at the bar by a chap who had played bodhran with Dan ar Braz and loved all things FC - although he did have to be careful where he played FC Cds !!!!

The best reaction I got was from a young lad in our cricket team.  I was wearing my green 2007 40th anniversary t shirt at the time.  Young Dave, who was about 21, said, 'I like your shirt Mick, very rustic!'  ;D

I've still got a MTH Rock n Roll circus T shirt. Its a bit tight though!

Brum 1988 wearing an In Real Time tee shirt - this bloke with long blonde hair and specs walks past me and says "Hey, cosmic tee shirt man" - and that was my first conversation with Ric Sanders

Bloody hippies.

Went to see Rammstein a few years ago, was wearing a Cropredy tee-shirt, we were standing talking whilst waiting for the support band, a chap wandered over and said "I thought I'd be the only one wearing Cropredy stuff tonight" and he was wearing a cap, or beanie, I can't remember, with the Cropredy logo and wording. We chatted about Cropredy for a few minutes, until Combi Christ wandered on and made noise.

Ron Tree really liked my 2005 Cropredy shirt when he saw it at a festival, the garish very bright shirt that most people don't like much, he hadn't heard of Cropredy but thought it must be really cool, judging by the colours of the shirt.

I have probably said this before, but when I was working the the local library (till the time I stopped) in 2004 it amused me when people would come in wearing their anniversary Fairport t-shirts, and I was too shy to say 'oooh! you've got my name on the back of your shirt' ...  :D

He was - of course - wrong  ;D

I certainly have had reactions to RT t shirts, positive not surprisingly. I think my Fairport t shirts people probably think it is some sort of convention. And at times in August, it is.
Btw Judy, that is so sweet.

My selection of Cropredy t-shirts always seem to provoke comment whilst I'm abroad ! On holiday in Bergerac a charming Frenchman enquired about 'ze Fairport Convention'; on Ithaca a Brit resident asked me if FC were still going and last year one of the waiters at our hotel on Lake Garda asked about UB40 at Croppers !

Cheers Nigel (International jet setter!)
 

I got one comment about what was this UB40 thing I went to since in 2011 their name was first, as Thursday headliner. Actually I'm sure its proper to run them in that order but why not run Saturday at the top so Fairport is first and everyone else is under FC? Anyway....at Clearwater Festival last year I ran in to someone with a Cropredy tshirt, though I forget which year was his. We both saw each other at the same time and smiled and had a nice little chat for a moment about Cropredy memories.

I often wear my Cropredy t shirts - they're good quality, comfortable, and nice designs. I've had several random people comment on them - one person in a cafe asked me if it was true that it's a good festival for families - "definitely, and you can park next to your tent".
A couple of other people I've met have just started chatting about fairport with me - I think the t shirts break the ice.

Lots of smiles and nods in interesting places - particularly up Lakeland fells, and for some strange reason, motorway service station loos!
My moment of glory though was The Guv'nor spotting my vintage Lark Rise T shirt from the stage during the 'revisited' set.

I used to teach in a secondary school. Every non-uniform day I would wear a Fairport Convention t-shirt. My HoD ran a charity competition, with a prize for any student who could identify the band. Sadly, nobody ever won it. Ironically, now I teach in an FE college, loads of students have heard of Fairport Convention, but we don't have non-uniform days.

Slightly off topic. I once went to buy a mandolin in a local music store wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt. The salesman said he didn't realise Iron Maiden fans could play the mandolin.

Paul

Paul,slightly off topic but  82 I was head of  5th Year in a secondary school.
I  wanted to make a real point about drug use.
I got David Kossof to come and do his one man show about the death of his son Paul (soz for teaching my granny) The 'show' was incredibly powerful.
I found I had to do an assembly weeks before he arrived explaining who Paul Kossof was.
I had seen Free prob 10 yrs before, it seemed very recent.
At the end of the yr one of the girls who was leaving school and who I had worried about going seriously off the rails, came and saw me.She gave me a copy of Back Street Crawler signed by some of the harder kids in the yr. Kids I had really worked on. Lots of thank you's.
 Still got that album and cover.

That's a nice story  :)  I was in the fifth year in '82-3 and David did the show at my school.  It was, as you say, very powerful stuff.  But as a 15 year old, stuff that happened 6 and more years before seemed liked ancient history!

That , sadly, makes you a lot younger than me!
At a recent fairport gig, i met  4 people in their mid 30's i used to teach but they were there cos i'd gone on about Liege and lief in english lessons almost 25 yrs ago!
They expected me to be there.

Currently on holiday in Barbados.
I wore a Cropredy shirt to breakfast and within 5 minutes we were talking to a couple of  Cropredy regulars from Banbury.

When  was living and working in Greece a few years ago, I had a lot of conversations started by my band t-shirts.
At least three bars had downloaded Fairport and RT albums because of the memories the expat old hippies had jolted.
Mythos, retsina and a freshly caught fish lunch taste great with What We Did On Our Holidays in the background.

I also performed a few classics with a friend who played in one of the live music bars.

A customer visiting the Kent Family History Fair in Maidstone on Sunday was wearing a Cropredy T-shirt and admitted to being a regular!