Lockdown music: recall your 10 favourite live bands. Fairport Convention, Coldplay and Cranberries feature for me

Chris While, superb in place of the late Sandy Denny, at the 2007 Cropredy festival, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Liege and Lief album, the original band - including Richard Thompson, shown - otherwise intact. Image: Brian Marks

 

 

Readers of my music site Salut! Live, and friends who see references on social media, know I have been inviting them to submit lists of all-time favourite singers - male and female - and now bands. Just a little lockdown fun.

In the case of bands, my own list would stretch for miles beyond the designated 10. So I restricted myself to those I have seen live. Even then, I found it impossible to avoid difficult choices.

As I said at Salut! Live: "Sadly, the limit of 10 leaves no room for the Stones, Geno Washington's Ram Jam Band, Altan, Dervish, Pentangle, the Doonans, the Dubliners, Sharon Shannon, Alan Stivell and Ron Kavana bands or any of the marvellous people I've caught at the London blues bar, Ain't Nothing But ...." 

I also excluded classical ensembles but despite my notorious love of folk and folk-rock, allowed all other genres. At Facebook, I described my selection as "reassuringly reactionary" and I now throw open the pages of Salut! to challenges and alternatives. Here's my list:

When I bumped into Richard Thompson relaxing at Cropredy before the band took the stage

• 1 Fairport Convention - never saw them with Sandy Denny but the recreation of the Liege and Lief album at the 2007 Cropredy festival, with Chris While taking Sandy's place to near-perfection, was sensational

* 2 Steeleye Span - seen repeatedly, including the London gig where they sent money floating down from the ceiling. Some in the audience pocketed £40 or more. Even I snatched £7. Maddy Prior and co transformed English folk

* 3 Oysterband - an electrifying experience

* 4 De Dannan - from the line-up with Mary Black and Dolores Keane sharing the vocals

* 5 Cranberries - my guilty pleasure. A memorable night on the Cote d'Azur.

* 6 Dire Straits  - gave me a glorious Parisian soiree, lighting up the City of Light

* 7 Coldplay - my unfashionable choice. Superb in Nice and Lyon

* 8 Lindisfarne - the best Christmas show I've attended (Newcastle upon Tyne) and I did see them in an amazing support set for Ralph McTell in Sunderland (he had to be good just to follow them, and was)

* 9 Chieftains - reliably inspirational, especially on the night they shared the Royal Albert Halt stage with Van Morrison, with John Peel as compere

* 10 John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers - sneaking a place on the basis of a gig on the Med coast, with Buddy Whittington on lead guitar. How I wish I'd seen them back when Clapton filled that role.

Now share your own preferences. Here, there or anywhere ...