As ever, the yearly Cropredy gig amounts to a greatest-hits show. Newcomer Chris Leslie was just finding his feet with the band in 1998 and had yet to make his mark as a songwriter (he achieved that on their album The Wood and the Wire). So here much is made of their impressive back catalog, including Sandy Denny's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes," their increasingly baroque arrangement of the traditional ballad "Matty Groves" (now a climactic showpiece medley), and of course Richard Thompson's evergreen anthem, "Meet on the Ledge." But the highlights are the instrumental numbers where the band members get to show off their virtuosity: fiddlers Leslie and Ric Sanders play jigs and reels with improvised abandon, locking together or trading riffs with one another, while Dave Pegg's marvelously fluid bass holds everything together. As with any concert video, it's always going to be more fun for those who were there. But most Fairporters will have made the pilgrimage to Cropredy at least once, so they'll understand what it's all about. Non-initiates may be forgiven for being puzzled by the sight of these middle-aged folk-rockers inhaling helium from balloons before breaking into a traditional jig. --Mark Walker, Amazon.co.uk