Status quo

Some years ago a concert promoter called Alan Day explained to me how he had revived the touring fortunes of sundry long-in-the-tooth acts. He had explained to them, gently, that they were no longer rock’n’roll bands playing to rock’n’roll audiences in rock’n’roll clubs. The people who were coming to see them, he pointed out, were the same age as them, and probably didn’t want to spend a long evening on their feet, being cramped and jostled. Try theatres instead, he suggested. Nice seats, nice toilets, everyone happy. Once he started booking these bands into theatres only, fans started flocking back. He took Marillion from scuzzy rock rooms like the Forum in Kentish Town to two nights at the Albert Hall.

I have a friend who insists that had Status Quo hailed from Düsseldorf rather than Catford, they would nowadays be as critically revered as Can, Faust, Neu! and those other hallowed Teutonic pioneers of unyielding rhythm from the 1970s. Maybe so. Very probably not. Canned Heat and ZZ Top seem more reachable comparisons. But it’s true that ‘the Quo’ have been underestimated and unjustly derided throughout their six-decade career, not least by themselves. The band has happily perpetuated their position as rock and roll neanderthals: a 2007 album is titled In Search Of The Fourth Chord. There was always a little more to it than that. Personally, I have always divined a terrible sadness at the heart of their music.