1973 Tour Dates.

The first ever Fairport tour of Oztralia.Other than this advert, kindly supplied by Michael Hunter ,I have scant information about this tour .It was however, more ambitious than the 1974 tour , as it took in Adelaide and Perth as well as the east coast.     Sandy Denny did not actually accompany Fairport on this tour , a fact that is confirmed below by Zbigniew Nowara who saw concerts from both the 73 and 74 tours .

You raise some questions on your site regarding Fairport Aussie tours of 1973 and 1974.
With regards to Sandy Denny touring with Fairport in May 1973 the answer is definitely no.Unfortunately the newspaper ads, handbills and the tour program all listed "Fairport Convention and Sandy Denny" with Sandy being given equal billing.

I don't know at what stage the promoter knew that Sandy would not be coming, but my memory of events is as follows :
In Melbourne, mentions of the tour in music columns of daily papers at least a week out were noting that Sandy would not be coming. However the ads and posters remained unchanged until only a day or two before the concerts when the newspaper ads carried a small asterisk and the notation that Sandy would not be appearing.  This is from memory, as I did have a file of newspaper clippings which were unfortunately pulped when the Board of Works Water main burst and flooded my garage some years ago.

Fortunately I still have the concert handbill which is a quite nice black ink drawing of an "overly battered scroll" design, and the tour program. The program is fairly simple and uses standard publicity shots and blurbs.
Unfortunately it was badly put together as the photos of Swarb, Peggy and Lucas are not opposite the correct text blurbs. We also got treated to such gems as Lucas being born near "Castle Marie" and Pegg being ex "The Ugleys" etc.

I agree with the 74 concert reviewer that the 73 show did not arc up. My own perception at the concert and speaking with acquaintances were that many came into the concert still expecting Sandy to be there doing the lead vocals. Another factor I believe was that there were in fact 2 concerts in Melbourne that Saturday, a 2pm and an 8 pm show. This combined with the fairly tight itinerary from and to other cities probably did not see the
band in most relaxed and fit mode. To be honest, I was actually more impressed with the support act for the show, "Country Radio".

Anyway onto 1974. Once again I agree with the "Living Daylights" reviewer. Compared with a few months earlier the band were really cooking. I remember being impressed with Jerry D's lead guitar work this time around - not the frenetic up and down the fretboard guitar hero masturbation type stuff, he played"slowhand" style with individual notes being picked out and accentuated but still with lots of bite.I was even more impressed withTrevor
Lucas. Somehow the cavernous nature of Festival hall rolled his vocal into a sound that was more resonant but less harsh than the studio sound. The combination of his Ovation acoustic with Donaghue's electric musings was
that unique sound that the acoustic/electric combination can sometimes give. And then when Sandy came onstage and took over lead vocals things could only get even better.

My memory of the subsequent stage banter was that it was announced that this was the first gig for Sandy as having officially rejoined Fairport as a full member, and that she would now do the rest of the Aussie dates as a full member of the band. This being the case our esteemed historian friend Pete Frame and numerous other Fairport chroniclers are 2 months out in the date when they have Sandy rejoining the band. Presumably they have relied on the official press release after the band got home prior to the next series of tour dates.
regards
Zbigniew Nowara