Festival Reviews Archives

Cropredy Festival 2025

Hi all – so following my Cropredy 2025 preview that we posted here earlier this year… in which we spoke to Dave Pegg and Simon Nicol about the shrinking of the festival as we waited for the the big weekend to arrive. One would be forgiven if I was to say I really did not know what to expect travelling up to the festival. My own folk -rock band ‘Shanakee’ had just had a run of gigs and I took a virtual break in gigging so I could attend and cover this years ‘Shrunken festival’ – knowing full well that immediately I came back from Cropredy I was plummeted in to resuming our run of ‘Shanakee’ gigs with two performances at The Broadstairs Folk week and ‘Cranfest’ Festival in Cranbrook – plus flying out to Cyprus for two weeks holiday in between!…so I was rather feeling that I may be one, disappointed and two definitely – ‘Crop lagged’ as our dearly departed Fairport PR and Media manager Stevie Horton used to say post Cropredy every year… god rest her sweet kind soul. She was sadly missed this year.

So as I nervously approached the sight via the beloved Williamscot road towards Cropredy village …what did I see? how did it feel? – what did it look like as I drove in?………..listen below to my audio review of Cropredy 2025 to find out!

Enjoy..

Paul Johnson playing with his band Shanakee

Listen to my review here ..

CLICK TO PLAY CROPREDY 2025 AUDIO / POD CAST REVIEW

I caught up with Ric Sanders

Ric Sanders

My Folking.com yearly chat with Chris Leslie, and as our beautiful soul and founder of folking.com Darren Beech is mentioned by Chris a couple of times in this interview I’ve included a picture of the two kind souls together at Cropredy just a wee few years ago.. RIP Darren we know your still around us every day and especially in that magical Cropredy field – missed every day and always held lovingly in our hearts….

I spoke to Joe Boughton and asked if he had gone totally mad travelling round with 50 youngsters with his conservatoire folk ensemble!? but what a great sound they make! a full on soundscape assault of your musical senses! and not surprisingly this chat was an interesting insight into Joe’s work and the history of his conservatoire folk ensemble…….