Fairground Attraction’s first single, ‘Perfect’, came out on 21st March 1988 and quickly went to No.1 on the UK charts and in countries all around the world. Their debut album, ‘The First Of A Million Kisses’, earned triple-platinum sales status and the group won Brit Awards for ‘Best Single’ and ‘Best Album’ of 1988 – they were the first band to win both these coveted awards in the same year; only Blur, Coldplay and Adele have done it since.
While ‘Perfect’ has gone on to become regarded as a genuine pop classic, Fairground Attraction imploded on the first day of recording what should have been their second album, leaving fans, and the band themselves, wondering what might have been had they been able to continue. Founding members, vocalist Eddi Reader and songwriter/guitarist Mark Nevin went on to have varied and successful careers but, like an annoying mosquito, the ’what ifs’ persisted for 35 long years.
“Why now?” people ask, on hearing the news that the band has reformed. While there are many ways in which this question could be answered, ultimately they found themselves at what just felt like the right moment. Nothing was forced or negotiated, no one’s lawyer talked to anyone’s manager – they don’t even have such things. Perhaps they just got bored of not being friends. Maybe the weirdness of lockdown reminded them of their mortality and woke them up to the fact that if they were ever going to play together again, they had better get on with it because it might soon be too late. Whatever the reason, Mark and Eddi found themselves ordering a couple of croissants in a coffee shop a couple of years ago, on the morning after Eddi’s annual show at the Union Chapel in London. The conversation could have started with: “…and as I was saying,” because it felt so natural and familiar, as though they were just picking up a thread from the evening before.
Then last year, on 8th June, Mark played a solo show at West Hampstead Arts Club and Eddi, in London for an extended stay while performing in a West End play, came to catch the second half. “I saw her come in, so I knew she was there, and I so wanted her to get up and do a song with me, but I just didn’t like to put her on the spot by asking in front of the audience,” recalls Mark. “I began singing the Fairground favourite ‘Allelujah’ and, after a few bars, my wife Louise sensed what was going on and urged Eddi to get up with me. She didn’t take much persuading and appeared at the front of the stage saying: ‘Your wife says I have to get up and sing with you.’”
It was a special moment for everyone in the room, the spell was broken and the doors were open for whatever Mark and Eddi wanted to do.
Shortly afterwards, the Japanese concert promoter Smash contacted Eddi and asked her if she would come and play at the 35th anniversary of Club Quattro in Nagoya – a venue Fairground Attraction had played at on its opening night all those years before. When Eddi suggested that the band reformed and played there together, the people at Smash were as delighted as they were surprised and it was game on.
When the four original members, Eddi, Mark, Simon and Roy, met to see what it felt like to play together, they found themselves laughing as they re-assembled the components of their unique sound and discovered it (that sound!) was still there. There is no other band like them; Simon Edwards’s use of the guitarrón (a large, Mexican, acoustic bass), gives the bottom end of their records a warmth and pathos that combines with their one-of-a-kind, master-of-the-brushes drummer, Roy Dodds. Nevin and Reader create a charming acoustic antidote to all that is modern and digital. When they arrived on the scene in 1988, they were described by many as a “breath of fresh air” and it is even truer today than it was then.
With the decision to go to Japan confirmed, it seemed mad not to do a show in London when they returned, and if they were going to play London, they had also to perform in Eddi’s hometown, Glasgow… and on it went until a full UK tour was agreed and the studio was booked to commence the recording of a new album. Finally, that second album was going to be recorded, surely making them the record holders for the longest gap between a first and second album ever? It was going to be a busy year!
As the band approached the challenge of recording together again after so long, they were confronted with some interesting questions about their identity. When they formed, back in the Eighties, Mark described them as “jazz musicians playing pop songs on folk instruments”, and the effect of this curious combination was a sound that defied all the common musical genres. Journalists struggled to describe them and they fell between the cracks of specialist radio stations, not really fitting in anywhere. Spotify describes the band as “neo-skiffle” –a handle they enjoy and cheerfully accept – but, at the end of the day, they do what they do, which is to write, play and sing what feels true.
Eddi and Mark contacted Roger Beaujolais and Graham Henderson, who had toured with them back in the day, to join them in the studio on vibraphone and accordion respectively and, on 27th January, they went into Master Chord Studio, in North London, to record the new songs that had been flowing from Mark’s pen. The first day of recording found the six musicians in the same room for the first time since their last show together at Cambridge Folk Festival in the summer of 1989. It was quietly thrilling, like a dream. On day one they recorded ‘A Hundred Years of Heartache’ and its lyrics seemed particularly relevant and poignant for the occasion:
Every time the clock strikes midnight, I can count another day
Every time I see the sunlight, I know I’m one less night away
One less night of counting midnights, all alone in my lonely bed
I’m coming home, the end is in sight, I’m coming home
I’m gonna rest my head, rest my head
And a hundred years of heartache are over now
A hundred years of heartache, I made it somehow
Recording was easy and fun, and the new songs fell into place effortlessly. In the week leading up to the sessions, Mark had written ‘What’s Wrong With The World?’, which would become the first single released from the album. The record featured a cover shot of a perplexed chess player, competing with himself in a mirror, which resonated with the song’s tag-line: “You can change the mirror, but not the reflection”. They were back – older, wiser, coming “face to face with imperfection” – except that this was, ironically, the perfect song for the moment; a song that answers the question: “What’s wrong with the world?” with another question: “Maybe it’s me?”
In those five days at Master Chord, Fairground Attraction recorded a song titled ‘Beautiful Happening’. The song originally came about after Mark’s publisher had asked whether he could come up with something for the renowned Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli, who had made a big impression during the lockdown, singing with just the accompaniment of an organist in a deserted Milan Cathedral. His haunting voice echoed through the emptiness of the Italian city and resonated around the world via the internet. Those were strange, unsettling days, but his performance inspired the song’s lyrics:
There’s something beautiful in this darkness
Something beautiful is going on
There’s something happening in this silence
Some kind of sweet and wordless song
Some kind of beautiful
Some kind of beautiful
Some kind of beautiful happening
Bocelli passed on the song but his loss was Fairground Attraction’s gain, capturing perfectly the spirit of their rebirth and giving them the title of their album and tour.
As the weeks turned to months, the sad news came through of the death of the band’s much-loved tour manager, Vance Anderson. During the decades that following their split, Vance had become tour manager and personal assistant to the mighty Tony Bennett, but he had adored Fairground Attraction. The week he passed was the week that ‘Hey Little Brother’ was written. Vance was Roy’s brother-in-law and used to call Roy “Little Brother”. The song wasn’t written about Vance, but it was a curious and timely coincidence.
‘Sing Anyway’ is a song that featured on Mark’s solo album, ‘My Unfashionable Opinion’, but here it is given new life when Eddi blesses it with her sublime voice, making it her own; a defiant anthem of hope in the face of despair. The band are joined by brilliant pedal-steel guitarist Melvin Duffy, known for his glowing contributions to the records of First Aid Kit. Together, Eddi and Melvin take the listener on a kind of silvery road trip.
Eddi’s favourite song is ‘Gatecrashing Heaven’, a gospel-flavoured soul ballad, where-in she laments: “All access denied to a sinner like me.”
Those looking for another ‘Perfect’ will probably identify the nearest thing to it in the pure pop of ‘Learning To Swim’, while the addition of the magnificent Kick Horns on ‘Sun And Moon’ expands the band’s hallmark ‘neo-skiffle’ sound in a raucous celebration of love and forgiveness.
‘The Simple Truth’ is something different for Fairground Attraction and is the first of two songs on the album co-written by Nevin and other songwriters – in this case Nashville veteran Kimmie Rhodes and Mystery Jets vocalist Blaine Harrison. Graham Henderson exchanges his accordion for a glorious performance on the chromatic harmonica and string arranger Nigel Hopkins brings a touch of class to the proceedings with his understated score.
In ‘Last Night (Was A Sweet One)’, we are invited on to an imaginary film set of rekindled love, with The Kick Horns sounding as though they might be dressed in the garb of a Mexican mariachi band: “Cue mandolins… now focus in for the close-up reaction and cut! It’s a wrap! I’ll always remember this moment like that.”
‘Miracles’ bravely answers the question of how we go about addressing the no small problem of civilisational collapse and, guess what? As in ‘What’s Wrong With The World?’ the answer to the problem lies in ourselves.
‘Beautiful Happening’ ends in the way ‘The First of a Million Kisses’ began, with a waltzy lullaby – this time with some advice for a mother trying to get her three babies to sleep without one waking another. ‘Lullaby For Irish Triplets’ (written by Nevin, Grace Pettis and Robbie Cavanaugh) seals this set of 12 of songs played by a band at the top of their game and blessed by one of the UK’s finest vocalists.
It was a long time coming, but it was worth the wait.
There is no other band like Fairground Attraction and, after more than 35 years, this is only their second album. Will there be another? Who knows, but whatever happens, don’t miss this, it is beautiful.
‘Beautiful Happening’ is out 27th September via Raresong Recordings. Pre-save HERE.
Catch the band on tour this autumn:
Saturday 28th September – Wolverhampton, Wulfrun Hall
Sunday 29th September – Manchester, Opera House
Tuesday 1st October – York, Barbican
Thursday 3rd October – Gateshead, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music
Friday 4th October – Nottingham, Royal Concert Hall
Saturday 5th October – London, Royal Festival Hall
Monday 7th October – Cambridge, Corn Exchange
Tuesday 8th October – Brighton, Dome
Thursday 10th October – Oxford, New Theatre
Friday 11th October – Bristol, Beacon
Monday 14th October – Perth, Concert Hall
Wednesday 16th October – Aberdeen, Music Hall
Thursday 17th October – Glasgow, Royal Concert Hall
Friday 18th October – Edinburgh, Usher Hall
Purchase your tour tickets HERE.
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