LIVE CONVENTION

This is a big live! The pseudo baroque folk of the ours succeeds to excite also in seat live. It will be the voice of Sandy Danny, will be the skill of the musicians (Dave Pegg then in Jehtro Tull!!!), but to listen to between everything "John the Gunn" (the favourite of mine) is not so immediate. If it do know the Fairport and to my warning is a badly, you know that after this album are did not repeat themselves more to these levels!

This live album created much hype when it was orinally released in 1974, because of the presence of the returning Sandy Denny. And she did a great job (as always), singing with passion and harmonizing very well with Lucas, Pegg and Swarbrick, making this album a must to all her fans. Of course, Trevor Lucas and Jerry Donahue aren't up to the standards of Thompson and Nicol, but they did a good job. The rhythm section was the "definitive one" (Mattacks and Pegg), and their interplay is hypnotic. But IMHO "Live Convention" could be better: Fairport had lots of great songs in their past catalogue, enough to fill a double LP (maybe someday Island Records will reissue this album with bonus tracks). Highlights: "Matty Groves", "Sloth" and "Sir B. McKenzie".

A disappointing album. With a singer as great as Sandy Denny, who wants to hear anyone else sing? Perhaps it's not fair to judge this record like that, but I think it's a shame we get to hear Sandy so little on this record, which lasts only 45 minutes to begin with. And of the time we get to hear Sandy, two and a half minutes are wasted on some boring Bob Dylan song. A shame is also that the version of Matty Groves is far inferior to the original, being played at a slower pace which takes all of the excitement out of it. Sloth is a great song, but without Richard Thompson's guitar it isn't worth much. Listen to the version on House Full and hear the difference. Being surrounded by lesser gods, Sandy Denny gets to shine only once, in her own John the Gun, easily the highlight of this album and, in my opinion, the only reason to buy it.

Live Convention is a remarkable Live performance because of the "comeback" of Sandy Denny, the woman vocalist that shined on the Liege & Lief record and the records before that. I do hardly prefer her voice aboth the man vocalist: in fact she might the best woman vocalist within the folkgenre. So, this record is interesting for fans of the early Fairport Convention.

The quality of the record goes up and down by each track. The livesound of Matty Grooves differs from the original track, but is equally good. The solo's are different, showing that Fairport Convention is not just a folkrock band, but a jamband as well. This opening for the record/show is great!

Rosie, the second track, is not more than a standard country song performed by the man vocalist. I prefer Johny Cash live performances aboth this one. Something you got is a second country track with dual vocals. Not so good either. Fiddlestix is a nice instrumental folky song, which invites dancing like in a western movie. The violin player is doing some great job here as wel in speed as in tightness.

Maybe the finest track of the record is John the Gun; a psychedelic folksong, which is a song written in Sandy Denny's solo career. There is some tension in the vocals and also in the violin. One of the best songs ever performed by Fairport Convention on record.

The record as a whole is not so steady. There are some great moments and some down moments. However there are many nice guitar and violin solo's and because of the jamming (not just repeating the studio records) this is a nice addition to a fairport convention collection, especially for fans of the vocals of Sandy Danny. Total rating is about 3,5 star.