The Welcome Mat: Do Come In, New Talkawhile Member

[SteveT]

Hi Alan  

[wayne stote]

Hello everyone. I've just joined so thought I'd do the questionnaire.

1. Who are you?

I'm Wayne. I come from Swansea though I'm not lucky enough to live there currently.

2. What made you want to join?

Been reading the forum for a while and enjoyed it. Thought it would be nice to contribute occasionally.

3. What do you know of Fairport/Cropredy?

I went to see Fairport on spec back in the very early Nineties, in Oxford. Been hooked ever since. I like all eras, including the current one and my favourite album is Tipplers Tales. Never been to Cropredy Festival. Not interested. I'm not keen on events of that size.

4. What kind of music do you like?

a) AOR (REO Speedwagon, Toto, Survivor etc)
b) Folk rock (Lindisfarne, the whole Fairport family, newer bands like Green Diesel etc)
c) Country rock (The Outlaws, Poco, Eagles etc)
d) Prog (Barclay James Harvest, Kansas, Big Big Train etc)
e) Classic singer-songwriters (Al Stewart, Dan Fogelberg, Gordon Lightfoot etc)

Other styles as well but these are my big five.

5. Last concert?

Big Big Train in Halifax. They were mind bogglingly good.

6. Last CD?

Just bought three new ones:

a) Zervas & Pepper - Endless Road, Restless Nomad. Excellent Welsh duo with a Laurel Canyon fixation. They party like it's 1969!
b) The Dead South - Sugar & Joy. Rocking bluegrass from Canada.
c) Show Of Hands - Battlefield Dance Floor. 'Nuff said!

7. Tonight I am going to be Dan Fogelberg and I am going to be singing Tucson Arizona (Gazette)

There we go!

[delfini (Diane)]

Welcome to TAW Wayne

[wayne stote]

Welcome to TAW Wayne

Many thanks!

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

Great musical taste Wayne! But then you're Welsh....  

[wayne stote]

Great musical taste Wayne! But then you're Welsh....  

Ha ha!

Diolch yn fawr!

[mickf]

Welcome

[wayne stote]

Welcome

Cheers!

[Lubiloo (Lorna)]

Croeso! Cropredy is not too big, or did you mean it was too small?  

[davidmjs]

a) Zervas & Pepper - Endless Road, Restless Nomad. Excellent Welsh duo with a Laurel Canyon fixation. They party like it's 1969!

Hi, Wayne.  Welcome.  

My other half and I were looking forward to seeing Z&P in Crickhowell next weekend, but apparently poor ticket sales and it's off.  We're still going there, mind as it's a place we love.  They certainly come highly recommended by me...but I'm very keen to see them live.

[Alan2]

Hi Wayne, and welcome.

[wayne stote]

Croeso! Cropredy is not too big, or did you mean it was too small?  

Thousands of people and just one stage sounds vast to me.!  

[wayne stote]

a) Zervas & Pepper - Endless Road, Restless Nomad. Excellent Welsh duo with a Laurel Canyon fixation. They party like it's 1969!

Hi, Wayne.  Welcome.  

My other half and I were looking forward to seeing Z&P in Crickhowell next weekend, but apparently poor ticket sales and it's off.  We're still going there, mind as it's a place we love.  They certainly come highly recommended by me...but I'm very keen to see them live.

That's a shame. They are excellent live. I've been lucky to catch them twice, once as a duo and once with a full band. The delivered in spades both times. Hopefully you'll get a chance soon! I reckon they'd make a super winter tour support act.

Have a great time in Crickhowell. It's probably my favourite town in the Beacons. I always end up spending far to much money in Book-ish!

[wayne stote]

Hi Wayne, and welcome.

Cheers, Alan!

[Stablelad (Alec)]

On the 19th of May at Perth Concert Hall I got to my second Fairport concert, forty nine years after the first.  For over forty years I have lived with horses which rules out the likes of faraway music festivals and I am greatly in debt to Mike Harding for keeping me in touch through the years.  In 1970 I was working in the USA but gave up my job as a hotel cleaner in West Orange to see if I could get a job helping to set up the Powder Ridge Festival, the follow-up to Woodstock.  This was the festival that never happened and I left early on, although I regret not hanging about long enough to hear Melanie with her amps hooked up to an ice cream wagon.  I kept hearing “Lay Down” on radios and juke boxes everywhere I went.  Apart from an enjoyable free concert in Penticton Park by The Great Canadian River Race when I was looking for work fruit picking, I had no contact with live music, so by the time I reached San Francisco in late Autumn it was straight off the Greyhound bus and around to the Fillmore to check out the next concert, thinking Quicksilver, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead.  What was on?  Chicken Shack, Savoy Brown and Fairport Convention, so at least two of the bands booked for Powder Ridge but, as someone at the concert said to me, “Far out, so you’ve come all this way to hear three English bands”!
The Fillmore 1970 was a bit different from Perth 2019.  All the seats in the stalls had been removed so we sat on the floor and, as the lights went down, it was the signal for everyone to light up.  Even if you had chosen not to take advantage of what was passed to you in the dark, you could not stop breathing.  After a time the floor did not feel quite so hard.
Fairport‘s set had a profound effect on the audience, we were completely spellbound.  I can remember everything clearly to this day whereas my first Stones’ gig at Murrayfield Stadium in 1999 only left memories of over-the-top security and, reading Keith Richards’ “Life”, he did not remember anything of the tour either!  The next day I went looking for records at a store run by Berkeley students where they were cheap enough to make it worth carrying them all the way back to Scotland.  The songs that had made the greatest impression on me appeared to be on a record called Liege and Lief (on the A&M label) and I also picked up Neil Young’s just released After the Gold Rush, which made me everyone’s favourite person back in Dundee for the week or so before it was released in the UK.  Both albums became an instant hit with everyone who heard them.  Why the critics initially missed out is beyond me.
Along with the LPs I bought a stack of Zap comix and a copy of the Berkeley Tribe.  The John Sinclair quote on the front page of the Tribe came to mind last month when he was the first person to buy legal marijuana in the state of Michigan:
“We are moving towards a conscious community of artists and lovers who live together, work together, share all things – smoke dope together, dance and **** together and spread the word together every way we can – through our dress, our freedom of movement, our music and dance, our economy, our social forms, through our every breath on this planet.”  
My drug use today does not go beyond an occasional glass of craft ale but I am happy for John Sinclair that he has achieved this small victory after fifty years, which means at least he will not be locked up again.  I do wonder however how much we have fulfilled his other expectations.   The music is still doing well but I am not sure about the other stuff!
Lately I have been catching up on the last fifty years of Heavy Metal by reading Andrew O’ Neill’s book and working through his playlist.  Waterloo Sunset still sounds as good as it did in 1967 when I had evening classes at a college near Blackfriars Bridge and walked over the river to catch the Sevenoaks train at Waterloo.    Sometimes you find yourself at the right place at the right time.    
I hope this answers the questions                        

[jude]

Hello Alec and welcome to here.

What a fascinating life you have lived and I am sure you will find like minded friends on this forum  

Jude (Newbie welcomer )