by Tom Nelligan

"What's the point of doing it if you don't have fun?," - Simon Nicol

After all these years, there are some things that are simply an expected part of the show for fans of the band that invented English folk-rock. Mild-mannered drummer Dave Mattacks will slowly bend over his kit like a craftsman concentrating on a delicate task and then let fly with a gut-punching volley. Fiddler Ric Sanders will dance and bounce and glide and generally threaten the safety of any mike stands or furniture in his vicinity. Multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock, the master of a two-headed mutant guitar/bouzouki, will grab a wine glass to use as an impromptu slide. Bassist Dave Pegg, smiling like a teenage rocker who just got his first big gig, will do unusual things with picks. Singer/guitarist Simon Nicol, part of the original gang that started it all will preside with wry wit and an ever-richer voice. Beverages will be consumed. And the set-closer will be a screaming electric version of the stark murder ballad, "Matty Groves," a song they first recorded in 1969 but which sounds new and fresh and strong every night.

After 28 years and roughly an equal number of albums, Fairport Convention is alive and well with a new U.S. release and an on-going enthusiasm. The cast of characters once changed too often to count, but it's been stable now since 1985. They don't do as much traditional music as they used to, but they've applied their sound to contemporary songs with the same success that they attached it to old ballads. Now they're attracting a new generation of fans whose parents were fans in the old days, and likely still are. Two of the band's senior members, Pegg and Nicol, updated Fairport's story one evening last June before closing out their 1995 American tour with an energetic show at the Blackthorne Tavern in South Easton, Massachusetts.

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