Status Quo & Roy Wood Sheffield Arena 6th December 2009
This promised to be a great double bill: the mighty Quo with special guests Roy Wood’s Rock n Roll Band. Quo were due to come to my local venue, Newcastle City Hall, but Roy Wood featured at the Arena gigs only. Hence I decided to pass on the City Hall show and make the journey to Sheffield to catch Roy with my heroes. I hadn’t seen Roy Wood since his Wizzard days, when he played Sunderland Locarno several times. I was looking forward to catching up with him again; his shows are few and far between these days and he hasn’t ventured to the North East for many years.
I’d just arrived back from seeing Shift-Static in Edinburgh on Sunday morning; had a little break and then set off to drive to Sheffield around 4.30pm. Got to Sheffield around 6.30pm with plenty of time before Roy took the stage. The Arena was set out at half-maximum size and was pretty full; I would guess that there were around 3,000-4,000 people there. Roy Wood took the stage at 7.30 sharp and played us all of his Move and Wizzard hits. His band consists of a girl singer, guitar, bass, drums, piano, and a brass section. We got Fire Brigade, Blackberry Way, See my Baby Jive and he finished with (as expected) I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day. The crowd loved him and everyone was standing, clapping and singing along by the end. A great choice for support; they warmed up everyone for the main act.
There was then a very short change-over and soon we got the usual Quo Drone signalling that the guys were taking the stage. Caroline, as always, starts the proceedings; the set is very similar to last year’s Pictures tour. Francis has not been well with bronchitis and some gigs were cancelled last week. The rest has clearly done him good. He’s on top form tonight; he, Rick and Rhino own the stage and are Quo at their best: rocking, joking, cheeky with the crowd. For me you can’t fault them when they are on form like this. Theres been a lot of talk on the Quo message board about the need to change the set. I’m not so sure; I think if there is an issue it is that this band tours all the time (unlike many others of their era) so we are all spoilt in seeing them at least once or twice every year. So of course we get used to the set. For me they were great. I sneak out during Bye Bye Johnny to get out of the carpark early (around 10.30pm) and get home around 12.30am.
website Status Quo: http://www.statusquo.co.uk/
website Roy Wood: http://www.roywood.co.uk/
Set list Roy Wood: included (plus one or two I didn’t know) I Can Hear the Grass Grow; Flowers in the Rain; Blackberry Way; Fire Brigade; Angel Fingers; California Man; See my Baby Jive; and finished with : I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day.
Set list Status Quo: similar to last year; something like: Caroline; Something ’bout You Baby I Like; Rain; Don’t Drive My Car; Mean Girl; Beginning Of The End; Hold You Back; What You’re Proposing / Down The Dustpipe / Little Lady / Red Sky / Dear John; Big Fat Mama; Pictures Of Matchstick Men; Ice In The Sun; Creepin’ Up On You; Living On An Island; In The Army Now; Roll Over Lay Down; Down Down; Whatever You Want; Rockin’ All Over The World
Encore: Paper Plane; Junior’s Wailing; Rock n Roll Music / Bye Bye Johnny
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programme
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