Classic Quo are back

[Big_Stu]

Lancaster played a Mustang as early as 1970

Like here for eg. I remember when I saw the "new" line up they did the extended version of this & I was among a seething head-banging mass at the front being carried around in waves of people; spilt beer, sweat and damp denim & leather...........

[uwe]

I have tickets for the Wembley gig! The regular tour with two dates at the Hammersmith Apollo sold out within 24 hours, some gigs within minutes! Who'd have thought, some people do seem to remember Alan and John.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0PI_LzUhq8&feature=related

[uwe]

Dear Brethren, I'm - as I write - in Row 7 of Wembley Arena awaiting the return of the magnificent Frantic Four!!!

[Basvarken]

Have fun! I hope Lancaster is in better shape than the previous shows...

[lowend1]

Imagine Herman's Hermits morphing into Grand Funk Railroad in the early seventies - this is what happened to Quo who went from singles pop to live high energy rhythm & blues boogie rock around the same time. The comparison to Foghat is not entirely without merit.

Foghat, yeah - Grand Funk, not so much. GFR, even at their most commercial, were far more than boogie rock - simply by virtue of Farner's voice, and while they may have had a couple of tunes that worshipped at the Altar Of The Suspended Chord, the songwriting was a little more... 3 dimensional?

[Highlander]

Dear Brethren, as I type, I'm sitting in a slightly slumped position on my sofa, with a glass of merlot...

Enjoy the show Quo...

I expect a full report... at least forty-five hundred lines...

[Pekka]

And this is how Backwater used to sound:

Back in 1990 that video was my first exposure to the real Status Quo opposed to the "Army Now" stuff. "Backwater" is one of my favs and all the albums from "Dog Of Two Head" to "Live" are great.

[Basvarken]

How did you like the show Uwe?

[uwe]

It was moving and painful at the same time.



They played basically a mid- and early seventies set (even Rocking all over the World did not make the song list) and the sound was excellent, Wembley Arena full and the (more than middle-aged) audience lapped it up.

I've seen Quo three times before (once with and twice post-Lancaster) and if I have one impression from this concert then it is how Parfitt's forceful and accurate rhythm guitar propels/propulses the band forward and how everything is arranged around this force of nature. He is Keith Richards, Malcolm Young and Johnny Ramone combined. And at the same time totally Rick Parfitt.

Rossi (who has matured as a lead guitarist and has a more commanding tone in his solos these days than he used to have) unselfishly took a backseat in the set, most of the singing was done by Parfitt and Lancaster (who for all his health issues was in fine voice, his gravelly tone hasn't aged a bit). There wasn't even Caroline for Rossi to sing. It's no secret that Francis doesn't really like hard rock nor does he consider himself to be a hard rocker, much of the schism of the band in the late seventies and early eighties had to do with Lancaster's refusal to follow Rossi in branching out in pop territory (which gave Status Quo hit singles, but a loss of credibility with their original seventies audience). And watching him playing the very hard rock arrangements from Quo's quintet of  monolithic albums until the mid seventies (Piledriver, Hello, Quo, On the Level and Blue for You), I detected parallels to Eric Clapton doing the Cream reunion, Rossi is doing this more to close a chapter with Coughlan and Lancaster (and help them with their pensions no doubt) than to gratify his own musical tastes. That doesn't speak against the man, he played and sang well, but his heart is somewhere else (Parfitt on the other hand was in full seventies mode and probably sang the lion's share of the evening).

Coughlan drums with Quo like no other drummer does though probably all his successors know more chops than he does, but his drumming just complements the sound in the way Bill Ward comlemented Sabbath, Criss complemented Kiss, Ringo the Beatles or Watts the Stones. He fluffed the intro break of Junior's Wailing right at the beginning (will kick himself for it, the gig was being filmed and recorded for posterity, but I'm sure they have evened it out by the time the DVD hits the stores!   ).

Which brings us to Alan Lancaster, the bass player I patterned my early style on most. Alan was all smiles that evening and relished being before the old Quo audience who loved him for simply being there. He sang well  and forcefully. But ... the man is health-wise clearly not well. For all his denials about suffering from MS, if it's not MS then it must be something equally terrible. Lancaster was always the most muscular with Quo, the most agile, the one with the macho moves on stage. On Sunday he could hardly move at all - think Mick Mars - and stalked actoss the stage bravely but less than confidently. He's frail, severely hunched, the whole right side of his body seems to have motoric issues, the pick was taped to his right hand (and he would sometimes relocate it with his left hand which is in obviously better motoric shape), his picking movements are stiff and awkward and while his Mustang bass was mercifully mixed between Coughlan's bass drum and Parfitt's deep chugging rhythm guitar so that the casual listner would not notice anything, his bass playing can no longer throb like it used to (he used to be mainly a down stroker and was fast at it), he now strums his bass Phil Lynott style (but less agilely) which is ok to fill the music with deep frequencies but doesn't pulse anymore. No comparison to the forcefulness of, say, Rhino, his successor in Quo. It's hard for me to write this as Alan was visibly (and deservedly) happy and proud about the gig, but if his motorics deteriorate further, he won't be able to do this for very long. When he sat - together with Parfitt - on the drum riser while Rossi was crooning Most of the Time, I was worried he might not be able to get up again and sure enough, in a touching moment, Parfitt helped him a little as inconspiciously as possible. Likewise at the end of the encore - and Alan's picking strength was already waning, you could see and hear it - you could see that the second he was behind the curtain, someone was by his side to support the poor guy.

Physically, Parfitt and Rossi walked the very fine line between doing the old "Quo Row" routines then and now (especially Parfitt - four heart bypasses or not - was muscular in his playing and movements) and not doing it too often so Alan's illness-induced inertia would not be too evident. Sometimes the two would even take him in the middle of their Quo formation, but the Quo member that used to be the most agile and athletic on stage can no longer move to the music.

I just hope that Alan is not in pain. Bitch of a disease that is. But I'm happy that he has/had the chance to do this once more/one final time with the band where his lifeblood is in. Unlike Rossi who sometimes muses about life outside Quo, Alan lives and breathes Status Quo and very little else, musically at least. In more than 30 years after his departure from Quo he never found another musical home (let's forget his various stints with the - Aussie - Party Boys which are basically a tribute band living off the glories of its members mined with other, previous bands).

[Pilgrim]

It was moving and painful at the same time.

Kind of like bad Mexican food.   

[Basvarken]

Thank you for the detailed observations Uwe. From the videos that I saw from the Wolverhampton and Hammersmith gigs I was worried about Lancaster's health too. He staggered from the drumriser to his mic. And he seemed to be constantly checking and relocating the pick in his right hand.

Parfitt looked fierce. Keeping (what is left of) the power up.

[Highlander]

It's a true shame (on me) that I never got to see them during their heyday; purely my fault; but the part of me that wishes I did is also very glad I didn't go on Sunday...

[Freuds_Cat]

I saw Quo 3 times pre 79, all with that great lineup. They never disappointed.

I also saw Alan with the Party boys a couple of times too. To call them "basically a tribute band living off the glories of its members mined with other, previous bands" is quite harsh. Although, I can understand this view coming from someone outside Australia and New Zealand. Some of the bands that are big here are not even known in the US or Europe yet will pull bigger crowds than international acts. Cold Chisel and Skyhooks  comes to mind. The Party Boys did do covers yes, but every member that walked through the revolving door that was the Party boys, was bona fide Australian (or international)  rock royalty. Bias from me maybe, I'm Australian and are friends with three of them. Give them credit for playing a lot of songs that were originally played or written by one or two members when in the originating band.
Party Boys were not just a tribute band or a cover band as such. They did write some of the songs on the self titled album. They were something different to all the other band formula's going around at that time. No Youtube video that I've ever seen does them justice. And man they kicked serious arse live. They were the real deal IMO. Like I said I can understand Uwe's London/LA journo viewpoint but The party boys were not an international band.

In this case I would say Context is everything.

[uwe]

"Like I said I can understand Uwe's London/LA journo viewpoint ..."

Ouch!!! Forgive me, my antepodean friend!

For the record, even though I've unfortunately not been there yet (which needs to be corrected) I love both Australia and NZ and do not think that either is the end of the world. I think the Skyhooks are brilliant as are Midnight Oil, I like what the Finn brothers have done in their various bands (how many people outside of Aus or NZ are like me the proud owner of a Split Enz CD, not just Crowded House!), AC/DC is a rock benchmark, I have Little River Band CDs, Bob Daisley, the Bee Gees, Graham Bonnet etc ...  My daughter went to school in NZ for half a year. I even share the roof with four Australians (one spike-tail monitor and three blue-tongue skinks/lizards). I adore your country just for its reptile wealth!!! But I rather see the real Pink Floyd than The Australian Pink Floyd, never mind how much they have perfected their tribute act.

I have a CD of Alan Lancaster post-Quo material that features some Party Boys stuff and it is well-played and produced, the original compositions are able AOR. I'm sure that they could deliver the goods live, but they were neither a permanent fixture in Alan's musical life nor did they from their very concept strive to be original.

Will it console you that I even have a Kylie double CD and think that "Confide" is a classic track?



And I never liked LA when I was there either (in all fairness: it's been some time, late eighties). Not at all an organically grown urban city from a European viewpoint.

Australia deserves to exist just for this brilliant version here:



Deep Purple have used it as opening music to their concerts (or as when the lights go back on) and even have done a jazz version of SotW that rips off Rolf's arrangement.

[Freuds_Cat]

As brilliant as Rolf is, just like Steve Morse spending more time in DP than Blackmore ever did, Rolf has lived most of his life in the UK. Most younger Australians only have a vague idea of who he is at best. People here still think of Kylie as the chick from Neighbors (TV soap opera) who made it big in music. She too has lived more of her life in the UK than in Australia.