Fairport’s Dave Pegg discusses Cropredy Convention’s enduring appeal as festival approaches

In August, the members of Fairport Convention will walk out at Cropredy – their annual three-day festival – and in front of thousands of fans, play a short acoustic set to open proceedings.

It’s a tradition the hosts of Cropredy Convention have been doing for more than a decade at the festival, which celebrates its 45th anniversary this year and takes place a few miles over the Northamptonshire border near Banbury.

Then, on Cropredy’s final day, the band will return to the stage for an extended headline ‘electric’ set to close proceedings.

For Fairport bassist Dave Pegg, one of the enduring appeals of Cropredy and one of the keys to its success has always been its varied line-up.

While his band will always be associated with the folk-rock scene, he says one of the reasons fans return to Cropredy year after year is its diverse line-up and the standard of acts which play.

“The standard of musicianship at Cropredy is amazing, there’s no passengers,” he explains.

“What’s hard for us in Fairport is then following these acts because we only book people we really rate musically, irrespective of the kind of music that they play.

“It’s really important to us that we offer something for everybody – we’re not a folk festival, not a rock festival.

“Cropredy is very family-orientated and we get generations of people coming.

“People my age who’ve been there since it first started, their kids and their kids.”

That mix of genres has been evident in recent years with acts including Alice Cooper, Frank Turner, Brian Wilson, The Trevor Horn Band, UB40, Supergrass and Petula Clark among those to have performed.

This year it’s the 45th anniversary of Cropredy Convention – but the origins of the festival date back to the late 1970s.

During the decade, Pegg and former Fairport member Dave Swarbrick lived in Cropredy village.

Having decided to split, and after opening for Led Zeppelin at Knebworth, the band played a farewell gig in the village.

However, the following year they decided to get back together with some friends with 1980 recognised as the first ‘Cropredy Festival’.

Now, more than four decades on, it attracts acts and fans from across the world – with 20,000 music lovers watching performances on Cropredy’s sole stage.

That singular stage is another reason which Pegg cites as one of the keys to Cropredy’s success.

“I think it's one of the main reasons we’re different from other festivals,” he explains.

“We try to make it the most comfortable festival for people which is why we've always only had one stage.

​People bring seats, they get comfy and they sit there and everything happens before them

​“You don't have to go traipsing around, trying to find out what bands are where and we have a great bar and great food.

“The sound is superb and we have the two big screens so everyone gets to see everything.

“People camp where they park and they’re never more than five minutes away from the main festival field.”

Pegg is joined in Fairport Convention by multi-instrumentalists Simon Nicol, Dave Mattacks, Ric Sanders and Chris Leslie.

The opening night of this year’s festival on Thursday, August 8, will be headlined by Rick Wakeman & The English Rock Ensemble with The Trevor Horn Band headlining the following night and Fairport closing proceedings on Saturday, August 10.

Organisers are keeping tight-lipped about a special guest which will precede Fairport on the final day.

Talking about this year’s line-up in more detail, Pegg said: “This year we’ve got Tony Christie and some people said, ‘oh, that's an unusual booking,’ but we played at a festival in Portugal where he was also performing.

“The sheer talent of the guy is incredible.

“He’s such a great crooner and that’s why we booked him.

“Elles Bailey is an upcoming wonderful blues singer and Baskery are an incredible three sisters from Sweden who make the most incredible music on banjo, fiddle and guitar – we’ve been trying to get them for years. Then we’ve got people like the Zac Schulze Gang who are incredible trio from Ireland who are just so rocky it’s brilliant.

“Spooky Men’s Chorale are 13 guys from Australia and people have been asking for years for acts like Big Big Train and Focus who we can’t wait to perform.

“Eddi Reader is coming down from Scotland and Kathryn Tickell is coming from Northumberland.

“Black Water County are a sort of punk folk band – they’re all monster players and what they do is brilliant.

“It’s a line-up absolutely packed with diverse talent.”

While the ethos behind Cropredy Convention and its singular ‘main stage’ has remained largely the same, one thing which has changed over the years is the cost, risk and technology associated with putting on a festival which is regularly attended by 20,000 people.

Pegg explains when Cropredy started, tickets were printed locally by a friend in a shed in a back garden and all posted from the village’s post office.

“The changes in the production and the cost of putting the festival on are astronomical,” he explains. “Remember, this was before the internet, before the mobile phone.

​The sound and vision is so advanced now compared to what it used to be in the old days

​“The sound system is incredible, there’s five or six cameras shooting every act and the lighting is so advanced.

“Technology has got to the point where it's so advanced, it’s a good thing for Cropredy, but it’s so much more difficult overall to put on.”

Pegg cites festival chief executive Gareth Williams as one of the key members of the festival team.

“Gareth worked with Oasis for about eight years and he’s got the job of trying to pull everything together,” he adds.

Like other festivals across the country, Cropredy didn’t take place in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid.

And, while people have returned in recent years, Pegg explains the associated costs have kept rising.

“It’s always a worry and you can never really relax,” he says, “It’s never a given there’s going to be enough people.

“After Covid, we had a fantastic year where everybody came back but the cost of everything just keeps escalating – up around 20 or 30 per cent right across the board.

“It impacts every festival. There’s nothing you can do apart from try to appeal to people.

“We’ve great regulars who come to Cropredy every year but we can't run the risk of not trying to do everything we can to sell it nowadays.

“What we’re building at Cropredy is like a town in the middle of nowhere, it’s incredibly well put together and something we’re incredibly proud of. Every year it’s such a relief when it all comes together.

“It’s grown in a very natural way and it’s managed to keep a lot of the people who came 45 years ago.”

With so many successful Cropredy Conventions since the festival started, you’d think the Fairport bassist would have trouble recalling some of his highlights.

However, for Pegg, there’s a few key musicians and performances which will always stand out for him.

“It was a great year when Robert Plant turned up and did half a dozen Led Zeppelin numbers with the Fairports,” he explains, “It was incredible to have him perform and we’ll never forget that one.

“Another great memory for me was when we had Roy Wood and Richard Thompson.

“A friend of ours came over from New York, he was a huge Move and Roy Wood fan and he asked if Roy would be doing I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day – and remember, this is in the second week of August.

“I asked Roy and he said he’d do it but he asked, ‘can you get a snow machine?’”

At the time, Pegg was playing with Jethro Tull and borrowed Ian Anderson’s snow machine.

They then proceeded to dress up their friend as Father Christmas and as Roy played the track, crackers were thrown out into the audience.

“It was just fantastic to pull that off in the middle of August,” he says.

“But, there are so many other highlights. Petula Clark for me was such a great one.

​For us to hear Brian Wilson play Good Vibrations across that field was a real scoop

​“Brian wasn’t in the best of health, but the band were absolutely fantastic and to see Al Jardine from the Beach Boys up at the bar, talking to punters – that’s what Cropredy is all about.

“Alice Cooper said Cropredy was the best audience he’d played to in Europe.

“I met Alice’s snake handler backstage and it’s a different snake every country Alice goes to which is something you don’t really think about.”

Pegg cites Finish rockers the Leningrad Cowboys as another standout act and memory – in part because of the number of members in the band.

“There’s about 15 of them,” he says. “They flew into Heathrow and somebody had to go and collect them. We sent a transit van with one of my daughter’s schoolmates and they had all of their equipment so we needed another van to collect the kit and props they had.

“But, the worst thing about it was trying to get work permits for them.

“You had to prove they were the people in the band and the very nature of the Leningrad Cowboys is it’s a very flexible line-up,” he explained.

“The musicians on the album weren’t necessarily the 15 people that would be at Cropredy.

“It was an absolute nightmare, but when they got here were just so funny and so good.

“I could write a book about it.”

Despite the hundreds of acts who have performed at Cropredy over the years, Pegg explains there’s still a ‘wish list’ – but he accepts the difficulty of attracting some to the UK in August, let alone to Cropredy.

“When spring comes around everything changes,” he says.

“People start to think about festivals and what I’m very confident about this year is that we’ve got another great line-up and something for everybody.

​When I hear the PA kick in on the Wednesday when we do the soundcheck, it’s a relief

​“Likewise, when you see the cars, vans and people coming on to the site.

“We’ve very proud of Cropredy and can’t wait to be welcoming people back.”

Full details of this year’s Cropredy Convention line-up and information about booking tickets is available at https://www.fairportconvention.com