Francis Rossi on stage (Image: Lynn BURT)
Status Quo legend Francis Rossi is a man finding himself increasingly baffled by certain aspects of modern-day life. Take the TV advert for a certain stomach-soothing product that had a mad dancing as he holds his bottom and reveals his ailment as “diarrhoea”. “Really?” asks veteran rocker Rossi, before he launches into the aforementioned jingle – planting a nasty ear worm in our heads that he repeatedly returns to throughout his lively and engaging solo (ish) show.
It’s a light-hearted moment of which there are many as Rossi talks us through a lengthy opening intro to his Quo Song Book Past, Present Future show.
Francis Rossi – rocker getting down down is on the up up (Image: Lynn BURT)
It may seem odd to say for a 77-year-old artist enjoying the twilight of a pretty much unrivalled career at the top of the music industry, but as a fairly recent convert to being a solo artist his performance level is definitely on the ascendency.
Whilst he did one electric tour to support his One Step At A Time solo album in 2010, it was in 2019 that he first embarked on a spoken-word tour – chatting in a fireside manner to rock journalist Mick Wall about his 60 year career. It was ok, but slightly laboured with only one song played – Caroline – as an acoustic finale.
In 2023 he returned with the horribly titled Tunes and Chat tour, this time accompanied by guitarist (and Quo sound engineer) Andy Brook to blend an array of acoustic tracks along with unscripted memories. The tour was performed in small venues but three years later he has honed the experience into a slick, rollicking night out, with venue sizes – and therefore audiences – on the up and up.
Taking to the stage of Harrogate’s majestic Edwardian Royal Hall, Rossi is instantly on fire cracking jokes, going off at weird tangents and regularly playing the “diarrhoea” ditty – I said ditty!
FOR DS – Francis Rossi – The Accidental (Image: Jonathan Reynolds)
But it’s when he reverts to playing the music that you can feel how far the show has progressed. Rossi’s playing of his Fender Acoustosonic guitar is at times jaw-dropping. Ok, he’s played many of these songs for approaching 50 decades so should have them perfectly down (down), but he’s still electrified playing the songs, jumping around in his large red armchair as he performs hit after hit in a thrilling 20-song set.
Much like his former day job heading The Quo one criticism would be the pretty-much static set-list – the so-called “deep cuts” from previous tours such as Someone Show Me Home, Spinning Wheel Blues, Tongue Tied all remaining alongside the anthemic big hits.
And also the tour is called Future but the star fails to incorporate any new music from his highly acclaimed solo album The Accidental, released earlier this year. Perhaps he’s holding that back for a different tour but it seems a strange omission?
Status Quo “The Last Night Of The Eletrics (Image: ullstein bild via Getty Images)
Whatever the reason these are small complaints as the show seamlessly moves through the gears delivering approaching three hours of foot-tapping, head-nodding, hand-clapping entertainment.
And whilst the audience doesn’t quite explode into life, this is now definitely a rock show with both Rossi and Brook giving their guitars a serious workout.
The home straight naturally focusses on time honoured crowd-pleasers such as Rockin’ All Over The World and In The Army Now with Rossi reprising the lengthy intro version of Number One smash Down Down in a way that threatens to send flames shooting from his acoustic fretboard.
The tour breaks on November 10 then returns across the UK from March 2027
