Fairy Light Nights

The first gigs were extremely well received by fans, with word-of-mouth and internet forums allowing renewed interest in the band to spread rapidly. Most of the gigs were very well attended, with many being full to capacity. Within six months, a CD entitled Fairy Light Nights was released, this being a recording of performances taken from various gigs. A year later, attendance at the gigs and sales of the CD were such that it was considered viable to release a second album, Fairy Light Nights 2, containing further songs which had been recorded at the same time but not included on the original album.

In all there were nearly 100 gigs, at a frequency of more than one a week at the height of activity. The band played as far north as Aberdeen and as far south as Penzance. Most of the shows were held by both the fans and the band to be extremely successful, although the one in Worthing is often cited by all who were there as a low point in the tour: because Marty's amplifiers were too loud for the venue and created intolerable feedback for the first few songs, Willson-Piper was forced to sit out the rest of the gig without playing, putting him in a foul mood and causing him to berate the audience between songs.

The last Fairy Light Night was in Crewe on 3 February 2002. This was also the last All About Eve concert to feature Willson-Piper, who would leave the band citing musical differences immediately afterwards. He was replaced in the spring of that year by a Finn, Toni Haimi, lately of bands such as Nozzle and Malluka. By the time they went back on tour again in May, they were a five-piece band and the subsequent gigs were fully electric.

All About Eve also played some fully electric dates during this time: these do not technically count as Fairy Light Nights but were equally well received by fans. These gigs included the 2000 Cropredy Festival where devoted fans sat through two hours of the Incredible String Band before All About Eve finally came on. These fully electric gigs included a concert at the Union Chapel in December 2000, which was recorded and later released as the album Live and Electric at the Union Chapel. The success of this concert and the comparatively high sales of the album encouraged the band to hold another, equally successful, concert in the same venue a year later.

This is a JamTart repackaging of both Fairy Light Nights CDs into a double album. The band fully approved it, although they emphasised that it contains nothing not already included in the two single albums.