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3 nights on board with Richard Thompson

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Venue:

The Amadeus Queen, Basel – Amsterdam

Date: 18/06/2022

About 3 years ago I was at Costa Del Folk in Portugal and chatting with a bloke I hsdn’t previously met. We did the standard “How many of these events have you been to” exchange and he told me this was his first but that he had been on the Show of Hands Rhine Cruise, organised by the same people who run Costa Del Folk. I expressed surprise and said it had struck me as being incredibly expensive. He said it had been ruinously expensive, absolutely bloody brilliant and he didn’t regret a penny of it. So fast forward 5 months and on my wedding anniversary in drops an email advertising a 7-day Rhine Cruise hosted by Fairport Convention. I saw this as God’s way of telling me to book. Along came Covid and it got postponed for a year. At some point they advertised a similar cruise hosted by Richard Thompson but it was even more expensive and I recognised that my GLW is not a major RT fan. I was thinking Fairport were big enough and could play in enough splinter groups to provide 6 nights of entertainment. None of the 2021 cruised actually happened and I was again offered to hold our booking until June 2022 with Fairport hosting from Amsterdam to Basel. But now I notice the previous week from Basel to Amsterdam features RT for 3 nights with support from 2 excellent bands, Broom Bezzums and the mighty Track Dogs both of who we have seen and enjoyed several times at Costa Del Folk. As regards the extra money I told myself that we hadn’t spent a lot over the pandemic and this would be our first holiday for 3 years. And so it came to pass: we boarded the Amadeus Queen on Tues 14th June and cruised on the Rhine and Moselle arriving in time to spend the last full day in Amsterdam. I had been getting the feeling that it hadn’t sold that well. It transpired that the initial interest had been from the US and that had pulled out in droves once the Ukraine invasion started. As a result our cruise was half full but with a full complement of crew. Not good for the organisers who had chartered the ship for 2 weeks but great for the punters. The cruise itself was great, comfortable, on-time, and the bar prices were OK considering we were a captive audience, We did an excursion every day which kept us busy. We ate a cooked breakfast, a 4 course lunch and a 5 course dinner every day and after about day 3 found ourselves getting peckish in mid afternoon. Our fellow passengers were good company and were all there to enjoy the evening concerts. I was a tad disappointed when it was announced a few weeks earlier that RT would join the cruise for the latter part and play consecutively for the last 3 nights. I also thought he would play the advertised 1 hour whereas the support bands had gone well over time every night. Maybe that news had reached RT because he played 75 minutes on his first night including the last 15 with his wife Zara. Songs included Gensis Hall, Dimming of the Day, Bright Lights Tonight, Wall of death. He thanked us at the end and said he hoped we’d enjoyed it the set as he’d be doing it all again tomorrow. Then a quick laugh and an assurance of no repeats throughout the week. My first thought was he has the back catalogue to allow that but I then thought that having written and recorded a stack of songs is one thing but being able to perform adequately is another thing altogether. I watched him close up all 3 nights. He was clearly nervous at the first show, forgot a few words and even made a few guitar errors but he visibly relaxed as the shows progressed.
I was front row centre for his 2nd night which was terrific including I Misunderstood, Valerie, Persuasion, Beeswing, Crocodile Tears, Vincent Black Lightning, Who Knows Where the Time Goes?. Zara joined in from Jet Plane in a Rocking Chair onwards. The US-based RT superfan beside me had left a polite note asking for Ghost of You Walks and it duly appeared on the list and received a glorious performance from RT, probably the highlight of a very high quality set.
The final night was billed as RT plus special guests. I had assumed this would be collaborations with various members of the support bands but one of my fellow passengers pointed out that as we’d be moored in Amsterdam all day, Fairport were almost certainly in town waiting to board the following day. Not wishing to be accused of seat-hogging I went for a more distant approach, a whole 3 rows back to enjoy this absolutely wonderful final show of a most excellent week. RT told us he’d split the show into 2. The first set included Ghosts in the Wind, Bathsheba Smiles, and the pandemic theme song Keep Your Distance plus some rarer gems in Hamlet, and The Great Valerio . After a 15m break RT and Zara were joined by special guests Dave “got the T-shirt” Pegg & Simon Nicol to perform 8 songs including a bunch from Full House. Despite genuine claims of no rehearsal they sounded fantastic. The encore was an unexpected cover of “I’m Down” normally associated with a fab Merseyside quartet. RT enlisted Robbie K. Jones from the Track Dogs to provide the backbeat. Here’s the setlist for you RT factfans:-
Hand of Kindness
Doctor of Physick
Sloth
Wall of Death
Now Be Thankful
Tearstained Letter
Poor Will & the Jolly Hangman
I’m Down

What did I learn? Well, I noticed he plays predominantly in Drop-D. He can still sing powerfully and can reach the top notes. He has a new soundman as longtime techie Simon Tassano has retired. His replacement Tristan did a great job and when I chatted to him he came across as a polite, humble and approachable young man, somewhat in contrast to my sole encounter with his predecessor. As you might expect RT kept himself fairly distant but the punters respected his privacy and requests for signings were granted by appointment.
I have 2 friends who had booked on the Fairport cruise and I knew they would be insanely jealous that I got to see the Full House set, because although Fairport were getting on the boat the following day (Tuesday), RT was flying off presumably to prepare for Glastonbury. However on Friday his FB announced that he had tested +ve for Covid on Wednesday after 2 years of escaping it and would therefore have to cancel his Glastonbury performance. So where did he get that from, I ask myself. And bear in mind the Fairport Cruise is Sold Out. My spies tell me that Simon was nowhere to be seen yesterday.

The audience:

Only 80 of us, mostly Brits but maybe 10% from USA. A few who’d come to see one or other of the support bands. The overwhelming majority had never been to Costa Del Folk and in many cases had never even heard of it. Everyone was well behaved and it made for an enjoyable atmosphere.

It made me think..

What would have happened it RT had contracted Covid either just before or during the Cruise? Presumably the organisers are insured for that scenario but there would have been 80 punters expressing their displeasure and rightly pointing out that he was the reason we are all there. If we were 4 days in and it suddenly became clear his 3 nights weren’t going to happen that could have been tricky all round. Anyway, back to the plot. I haven’t see RT since Oct 2017 when his performance was marred by an unappetising sound mix. I’m pleased to report that he performed very well and I was very happy to witness it.

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Comments

    • We had a Sunday Morning excursion in Koln which was mostly shut and noticeably untidy compared to other places we’d visited. Our first view of the cathedral was from the river path and the view was marred by a railway viaduct leading to the Station. I told our Guide it was handy that they had built the Cathedral so close to the railway line and Station. He looked for me for a few seconds and said “They weren’t built then”.
      Our walk into Speyer coincided with the catholic celebration of Corpus Christi and we witnessed a large parade including guys pushing trollies with battery soundsystems playing hymns. By contrast our visit to Rudesheim coincided with a week long Harley-Davidson convention. This involved a market with a Jack Daniels Whisky bar, and a concert tent with a Rammstein Tribute band parked behind.

      • Cologne is a city designed by the RAF – they bombed everything flat except the Dom (over 600 years in construction and being renovated in a Forth bridge stylee to this day), which was a useful direction finder from the air, being so tall and all. It’s been described as Gormenghast inside an NCP car park.

        Cologne is a whacky Stadt, that really comes into its own at Carnival (and the innuendo is well placed – the birthrate 9 months after Aschermittwoch is significantly higher than the rest of the year, not always to longstanding partners) – Bonn is significantly more sedate.

        Corpus Christi – one of the last of the long chain of spring/summer religious holidays in Catholic Germany – literally translated from the German as Happy Corpse Day – is particularly mad – processions of white-clad choirs, often led by censer-waving clerics at the front wafting thick clouds of incense, beating the bounds of the neighborhood, like some sort of Father Ted/Wicker Man mash up – scares the fuck out of me, to be honest.

        Sounds like you had a better experience in Rudersheim.

        • There’s a bar in Köln called Papa Joe’s that has automata.

          The Fairport link is that when Home Service were there they borrowed the tune played, which became Papa Joe’s Polka on A New Ground

        • Cologne was always one of my favourite German cities but I went there one year before Covid and found it to be dirty and rat infested – I guess from the river.
          I am going on a music cruise in November from LAX – something I have long looked forward to and hope all goes without a hitch. I saw him perform m with Zara in Brum either just before Covid or in between one of the lock downs. I am a massive RT fan but not a massive fan of her voice – she is no Linda that’s for sure.A great review by the way. Did he play any new songs.”?

          • He played at least 2 new songs. Sorry I can’t remember the titles. He said they would likely be on an RT Band album due to start recording soon. I purloined the setlist from his 2nd performance and one song is written as Lost. The final one in that set was called when the Saints Rise Out of their Graves

      • As a primary school child, we took a sleeper train from King’s Cross to Edinburgh. Breakfasting in the buffet car, we pulled into Berwick upon Tweed, which has a view of the castle atop the hill. There was a middle-aged high-BMI American couple at the table opposite.

        “Hun. Why did they build the castle so close to the rail station. Wouldn’t the trains keep them awake at night?”

        My mum had to restrain me from educating them, Mr Logic style.

  8. Great review, thanks. Thompson has the back catalogue to do several nights in a row with different setlists, especially when you throw in his terrific ability to do all sorts of unlikely covers. Sounds like it was a fun few days.Mind you I think if I suggested to Mrs BB three days locked on a boat listening to Richard Thompson she would have lots to say about it, none of it polite.

  10. We did the ‘taster’ cruise on the Amadeus Queen in April with Fairport. There was another ship with Fascinating Aida alongside, so we got one night of each act, and the first night was settling in. Yes, it was a bit pricey, but the service was 5 star and the food was wonderful. I got to chat with Peggy and Chris Leslie, and briefly with Rick and Simon’s other half. It was their first one, and clearly a rehearsal in a way for their longer trip. We really enjoyed it, but not sure we would take a much longer cruise (this was 3 nights). Mostly Fairporters in board, including lots of Cropredy goers, so we had a lot in common with virtually everybody we met.

    The music was brilliant, but we didn’t cruise much – a day trip from Amsterdam to Horrn was about it – and it did all get a bit Hi De Hi with the host telling us what was going on etc.

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