Fairport Convention singer/guitarist Simon Nicol began each of the band’s two sets a week ago Thursday at Scullers with the same intro, which appeared to have been fueled by some swipe he’d seen in the press. "I’d just like to point out that you’re not seeing a tribute band here. This is the real thing."

The small, diehard audience at the club didn’t need any convincing, but Nicol had a point: there’s a general assumption that Fairport Convention came to an end in the early ’70s, after guitarist/songwriter Richard Thompson and singer Sandy Denny went solo. What they had done up to that point — inventing English folk rock almost single-handedly and inspiring Led Zeppelin and others to jump aboard — was certainly enough to constitute a career. But there’s been a lot of history since then, a lot of line-ups; and even the tragedies (there are now three deceased ex-Fairporters, including Denny and husband Trevor Lucas) have added to the band’s mythic status.

The core of the current line-up, with recent additions in bouzouki/mandolin player Chris Leslie and drummer Gerry Conway, has actually been quite stable: Nicol has been aboard since the beginning, bassist Dave Pegg since 1970, and fiddler Ric Sanders since 1984. (It seemed odd that long-time Fairport drummer Dave Mattacks, who now lives in Boston and plays with Dennis Brennan and Amy Fairchild, didn’t get a mention at Scullers.) This outfit is a folk band with just a rock tinge; there’s no electric guitar (Pegg was the only one plugged in), and Thursday’s early set, drawn mainly from their recent albums, leaned to their more lyrical side. Leslie’s "Don’t Leave Too Soon," though a fine affirmation of friendship, was probably more sentimental than anything the early Fairport would’ve allowed themselves.

Only in the second set, when they ditched their regular set list for the sake of the holdover crowd, did the scope of their history come out. After a couple of dazzling instrumentals, they started taking requests, conjuring Sandy Denny with "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" and original fiddler Dave Swarbrick with "Rosie" (Swarbrick still sits in with the band in England but is battling emphysema and can no longer sing). Someone jokingly shouted for "Aqualung," referring to Pegg’s 10-year moonlighting stint in Jethro Tull, and he shot back, "You sing it, we’ll play it." I pushed my luck and yelled for "The Journeyman’s Grace," a great Thompson/Swarbrick obscurity from 1970, and sure enough, they nailed it. The exquisite harmonies, the hopeful spirituality, even the funk backbeat. Definitely the real thing.