Status Quo Newcastle City Hall September 27 2008
Loud. Rocking. Great atmosphere. The Quo army. Lots of Quo t-shirts. Deafening. Old songs and new(ish) songs. Pretty awesome actually.
So the mighty Quo return to the City Hall, where they always get a great reception, to start their Pictures 40 Years of Hits tour. There has been lots of chat on the fanclub message board about what the promised (and long overdue) changes to the setlist might be. Lots of expectations for this one, and fans in the front rows have travelled from all over the UK to see the first night of the tour.
I’m sitting 7 rws from the front to the left of the stage right in front of the speakers (dangerous). Quo come on to the usual drone intro and are straight into Caroline (no change yet then). But we soon realise that this is going to be a new show, and pretty special too. Lots of old ones have been brought back : Mean Girl, In MY Chair, Softer Ride, Is There a Better Way. And yes they did play Pictures of Matchstick Men and Ice in the Sun (the only song from last night which I’ve never seen them do before ; they probably haven’t played this one since the late 60s). The stage show has 3 screens at the back which worked pretty well; they showed some great old pictures of the band.
The last few songs were as usual : Down Down, Whatever you Want, Rocking All Over the World, with Juniors Wailing, Rock n Roll Music and Bye Bye Johnny as encores.
A pretty great show actually. Must be the best I have seen them for a long time, and Quo and I go back a long way (have seen them 30+ times since 1971). If you were getting tired of the show, and were going to give them a miss this time please think again and go along and see them; you won’t regret it.
Francis was in great cheeky form, having jokes with the front few rows. Rick’s voice is sounding pretty good too, and he got to sing quite a few. The crowd were, as always, up for it (although the centre of the balcony stayed seated pretty much throughout). My ears are still ringing this morning. Now do I go and see them again at the Arena shows in December (Sheffield or Glasgow is pretty tempting….. Manfred Mann is support for those shows…)
Setlist:
Caroline
The Wanderer
Rain
Don´t Drive My Car
Mean Girl
Softer Ride
Beginning of the End
Is There a Better Way
Proposin´ Medley
Big Fat Mama
Pictures of Matchstick Men
Ice In the Sun
The Oriental
Creepin´ Up On You
In My Chair
Living On an Island
In the Army Now
Roll Over Lay Down
Down Down
Whatever You Want
Rockín´ All Over the World
–Encores—
Junior´s Wailing
Rock´n´Roll Music
Bye Bye Johnny
Website: http://www.statusquo.co.uk/
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