It's Cropredy weekend!

It's the eve of Cropredy weekend - the few days of the calendar that resonate in a different way to all the rest.

For starters, Cropredy is our reunion weekend - I'm going to see faces over the next few days that I won't have seen since last years festival or even further back! It's got a habit of being exceedingly intimate, even despite it's relative size. In past year's it's been impossible to walk 5mins without bumping into someone you know. This sense of togetherness in amongst a dense 20,000 is epic.

Musically, Cropredy's a funny one - there's only a handfull of bands on the lineup that I am aware of, either through playing the music out on Banbury Sound, where classic hits are the abundance - or through my mate Tom making a playlist of the big hitters of the festival. In fact, through Connor I'm only aware of Brother & Bones but the other 'minnows' on the lineup, I have no expectation for. If last year is anything to go by, it's the unsuspected, unbeknownst bands that really shake things up!

This year too, with a lot of planning in bygone months, I've hit upon another commission for a Fairport documentary for Banbury Sound radio - something I did last year on a completely indie basis and to be honest, quite off the cuff - after wrangling a backstage press pass on Day 1 of the Festival last year, it was up to me and my mp3 sound recorder to make a mountain out of a molehill!



However, with some more time to prep myself, research and develop a battle plan. Also with more time to include my pal Connor Hawkins, a photographer/cinematographer from Banbury, it's going to be a two/three-fold project, with my radio doco spearheading the package, and professional visuals providing a rounded feature online.

It's a superb project to sink my teeth into - really keen to get the ball rolling after so many pre-festival interviews which have gone so well! Particularly with Chris Leslie and Simon Nicol of Fairport Convention, their insight into past years has been so interesting.
To have a chat with Chris about the years he spent in Newark studying the art of becoming a luthier (maker/restorer of stringed instruments) was captivating to say the least - to put in an academic context what he considered to be his true passion in life, you can imagine, feels good! To do that at a time where Dave Swarbrick wants your violin skills by way of performance adds to the feeling! It was a great conversation, which, sadly maybe won't see the light of day other than in another blog post - it's not the 100% focus of the doco, so with so much to squeeze in, that enchanting tale may well make a nice programme of itself.

Whichever way I look at the pre-production of this programme, I can already feel a burning desire to crack on and conquer - really hoping the end result matches my ambitions for it.

Roll on Cropredy, and roll on the cider.