By Micheal Hann

I went back in time on Saturday, to 30 years ago, which was the last time I saw Status Quo play live. I was a kid, and went to Milton Keynes Bowl on 21 July 1984 to see what was billed as the last ever Quo show. It turned out it wasn’t; they were back together for Live Aid within a year, and recommenced a career that continues to this day. I always felt cheated by that; I wouldn’t have gone had it not been the last ever show.

But on Saturday night – as part of my continuing to campaign for force Guardian music writer, pop historian, and Saint Etienne band member Bob Stanley to embrace heavy rock – I was down at Eventim Apollo (or the Hammersmith Odeon, as pretty much everyone there would have known it) for the return of the Frantic Four, the original Quo line-up. Or, rather, the second return of the Frantic Four, since they first reunited this time last year for the first time since 1981. Never let it be said Quo don’t have a pretty good eye for an opportunity, because this line-up is alternating with the actual current line-up, the Frantic Four playing the deep cuts, the current line-up doing the end-of-the-pier hits set.

Recent years have seen some extravagant claims made for Quo. A big Mojo feature posited their single-mindedness as a precursor to punk, and Bob suggested to me they had plenty in common with Krautrock, in their own peculiar way – making Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt the Norwood Neu! – and that the guitar pattern that introduces Caroline has rather more in common with the systems music of Steve Reich than with, say, Foghat.

Read the full story in The Guardian here.

[via Paul Newport on Google+]