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Mangel rock is set for comeback
From the Swindon Advertiser, first published Thursday 19th Jul 2001.
THE evergreen West Country 'mangel-rock' group The Wurzels, brought their Brand New Combine Harvester and other favourites to wow a crowd estimated at more than a thousand at the Shalbourne Country Fair on Saturday, July 14.
The organising committee from Shalbourne Club had booked the Somerset-based group with their unique scrumpy sound back in October, not knowing their performance in Wiltshire would coincide with their re-launch.
The Wurzels are now back with their new style of what they call cowshed music.
The crowd at Shalbourne could not get enough of it and whistled and called for more when the performance came to an end.
The group hopes Wurzelmania is back in a big way the same as it was with legendary founder, the late Adge Cutler, when it stormed to number one in the charts with the original Combine Harvester and Drink up Thee Zyder.
Now, 25 years on, the group has re-launched with what it calls its Combine Harvester 2001 remix and produced a new CD The Wurzels Collection.
Shalbourne Club chairman David Byrne said: "We had no way of knowing when we booked them last October that their re-launch would coincide with our country fayre."
In the four years since it started, the Shalbourne Fayre has doubled in size each year with more than 3,500 attending during the day on Saturday and more than a third staying on for the evening concert on the recreation field.
The Wurzels headed a line-up of seven live bands with jump-rock bands JP and the Wiseguys and Flash Harry, country and western singer Liza Marshall, rock band Doreen Doreen, samba band Samba Sulis and rural humour band The Plonkers.
The evening concert brought to an end a day of activities which raised more than £20,000.
The profit will go towards sports and leisure facilities in Shalbourne and the villages around.
There were 31 different real ales available in the beer tent and drinkers got through 70 barrels of beer.
In total the drinkers consumed more than 40 nine-gallon barrels and 30 eleven-gallon barrels of beers all recommended by the Campaign for Real Ale.
Activities included a pig roast, line-up of steam engines, vintage tractors, lawn mower racing, a classic motorcycle scramble, a display of vintage Triumph sports cars, children's amusement and a huge fireworks display.
Eight pub teams competed in a tug of war which was won by the Swan at Inkpen.
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