Cropredy Festival 2014

We're back from our annual jaunt to Fairport's Cropredy Convention in the glorious Oxfordshire countryside. As usual we met up with a crowd of chums from around the country. There were three newbies this year and a couple of absentees, but in all there were nineteen of us.

 

The music was mixed this year, as ever, but some of the headliners didn't really do it for me. The Genesis set went on and on, and Marillion didn't rouse anything in me. Australian Pink Floyd sounded very good and their light show was superb. I enjoyed The Wonderstuff too. The Waterboys did sound amazing, but I'd gone back to my tent so don't know what their set was like to look at. Oh, and Chas and Dave. Hmm. The less well known bands were often very good though. My highlights were Joe Broughton's Conservatoire Folk Ensemble, Capercaillie, The Mischa MacPherson Trio, Deborah Rose, Edwina Hayes, and Blackbeard's Tea Party (awesome!).  I think that I can conclude that I like folk and folk-rock, but am not so keen on prog rock!

 

Richard Digance opened proceedings on the Saturday with a fun set. This year we had 'Strictly Come Cropredy' where he got as much of the crowd as possible to waltz. Hilarious! Of course, he finished with the Morris dance; nearly twenty thousand people spontaneously stood up and waved white hankies in the air for five minutes. He didn't even announce it this year, misplayed a couple of chords and off we went. Fabulous! We were surrounded by confused Cropredy virgins and dished out white tissues accordingly.

 

The food was good as usual. We breakfasted every day at the Church breakfast, having sausage, bacon and egg inna bun, with large mugs of coffee for a very reasonable price. Yum! For lunches and tea I had falafel and salad in pitta (too much salad, not enough falafel, and fell apart, but tasty), organic beef burgers with stilton, salad and onion relish (delicious), Leon's vegetarian curries and rice (has to be done. My favourite curry was nettle and lentil), and slow-roast pulled pork in a wrap. Lots of tea and coffee, not so much booze, lots of freshly cooked doughnuts.

 

The weather was variable, with rain on Friday night and sunny spells most of the rest of the time. On Sunday morning we were lashed with torrential rain as we took down the tents, and had to paddle through the village to get to the bus stop. This was the tail end of hurricane Bertha apparently. We dried out at Banbury train station, listening to a group of lads playing jolly folk music in the cafe. Every large train station should have an ensemble!