Status Quo - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, Brighton Centre, Brighton, Britain, 12-12-1996

I've previously mentioned I'm not that keen on Status Quo. That's still the case, though I have been warming up to them a bit as I grow more familiar with their music. But they are really popular in Britain, so here's another BBC concert by them. This is the last BBC album I plan on posting for them.

Status Quo was a hit-making machine from the late 1960s until about 1990. After that, they continued to have hits in Britain, but none of them made the Top Ten. Earlier in 1996, the band released the album "Don't Stop," a covers album. There's not much sign of that album in this concert, except the last song, "All Around My Hat." This was a Top Ten hit for the folk rock band Steeleye Span in 1975, sung by the band's lead singer Maddy Prior. She helped sing the song for the version on the Status Quo album, and also joined them to sing it in this concert. Other than that, the band generally stuck to their biggest hits.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Paper Plane (Status Quo)
02 The Wanderer (Status Quo)
03 talk (Status Quo)
04 Proud Mary (Status Quo)
05 Wild Side of Life - Rollin' Home - Again and Again - Slow Train (Status Quo)
06 Get Back (Status Quo)
07 Whatever You Want (Status Quo)
08 In the Army Now (Status Quo)
09 Something 'bout You Baby I Like (Status Quo)
10 Don't Waste My Time (Status Quo)
11 Rockin' All Over the World (Status Quo)
12 Roadhouse Blues (Status Quo)
13 Caroline (Status Quo)
14 All Around My Hat (Status Quo with Maddy Prior)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dyAu5ckJ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/1Tb4bzfISs6gS7Z/file

The cover photo is from 1995. I don't know any details beyond that.

Status Quo - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: 1973-2005

Here's another Status Quo BBC album that I'd overlooked. This time, it's an album of studio sessions.

Boy, are these sessions spread out in time. The first three tracks come from a 1973 session hosted by BBC DJ John Peel. Tracks 4 through 7 come from a 1989 acoustic session. The remaining tracks are from a 2005. 

Status Quo did a bunch of studio sessions from 1966 to 1972, which make up Volumes 1 and 2 in this series. But it seems these are the only three sessions they did after that, even though their popularity grew quite a lot. I think a big part of that is that the BBC often switched to broadcasting concerts instead of studio sessions in the early 1970s, especially for a band like this one, which thrived in a concert setting.

All of the songs here come from the official box set "Live at the BBC." However, I had issues with the 1989 acoustic session, and I made changes to all the songs. The problem, in my eyes at least, is that the BBC DJ, Steve Wright, was one of those loud and aggressive morning DJ types, although he had an afternoon show at this time. It seems he couldn't help by try to make himself to focus on attention, loudly saying things all through the songs. So, using the UVR5 audio editing program, I tried to edit out his commentary over the music as much as possible. Sometimes I couldn't do it when he was talking while the band members were singing, but I got rid of most of it. I also got rid of the clapping and cheering, thanks to the MVSEP audio editing program. So now you can hear the actual songs being performed. If you prefer all the DJ talk, there's still the official box set version for you to have that option.

This album is 39 minutes long.

01 Paper Plane (Status Quo)
02 Softer Ride (Status Quo)
03 Don't Waste My Time (Status Quo)
04 In My Chair [Edit] (Status Quo)
05 Caroline [Edit] (Status Quo)
06 From a Jack to a King - Down the Dust Pipe [Edit] (Status Quo)
07 Railroad [Edit] (Status Quo)
08 Caroline (Status Quo)
09 The Party Ain't Over Yet (Status Quo)
10 Whatever You Want (Status Quo)
11 Belavista Man (Status Quo)
12 Rockin' All Over the World (Status Quo)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PosJQdGo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/4zydP2amyCMYIzi/file

The cover photo shows the band in 1978. That's Francis Rossi, Alan Lancaster, Rick Parfitt, John Cocklan, and Andy Bown.

Status Quo - In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 3-1-1973

As I think I've mentioned previously, I'm not that much of a Statuo Quo fan. However, now that I'm being more generous in posting BBC albums from other artists, I figure I should be more generous to this band too. I know lots of people are fans, especially in Britain. So here's a BBC concert they did in 1973.

In the late 1960s, Status Quo had some success as with psychedelic music. Then musical tastes changed, and it took time for them to regain their footing. But in 1972, they released the studio album "Piledriver," cementing their new boogie shuffle sound. One song from it, "Paper Plane," was a Top Ten hit in Britain, their first one there since 1968. Although this concert took place in 1973, it was only a few months since the release of that album in late 1972.

This entire concert has been officially released on the huge box set "Live at the BBC." The sound quality is excellent.

Note that I have a new "Volume 4" to post as well. That means a 1988 BBC concert, previously "Volume 3," is now being renamed "Volume 5."

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Junior's Wailing (Status Quo)
02 Someone's Learning (Status Quo)
03 talk (Status Quo)
04 In My Chair (Status Quo)
05 talk (Status Quo)
06 Railroad (Status Quo)
07 talk (Status Quo)
08 Don't Waste My Time (Status Quo)
09 talk (Status Quo)
10 Paper Plane (Status Quo)
11 Roadhouse Blues (Status Quo)
12 Bye Bye Johnny (Status Quo)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mkA435z8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/dmTAbpPFn9g1WWT/file

The cover photo shows band member Rick Parfitt, at some concert in 1973. I was looking for a photo of the entire band from that year, but I couldn't find much. However, I thought this one looked pretty neat, so I went with it.

Knebworth Festival, Knebworth House, Knebworth, Britain, 6-30-1990, Part 2: Status Quo

Status Quo isn't a well known band in the United States, but they were consistently big hit makers in Britain from the 1960s to the 2000s. They were the second act at the 1990 Knebworth Festival.

There's not much else for me to say here, I think. If you like the band's style of boogie rock, you should enjoy this. 

The wind was a little stronger here than later in the concert, and you can really hear the wind rustling during some quiet parts, but the vast majority of this sounds perfectly fine.

This album is an hour and one minute long.

01 talk by Mark Goodyear (Status Quo)
02 Caroline (Status Quo)
03 talk (Status Quo)
04 Mystery Song - Railroad -  Most of the Time - Wild Side of Life (Status Quo)
05 Rollin' Home -  Again and Again - Slow Train (Status Quo)
06 Hold You Back (Status Quo)
07 talk (Status Quo)
08 Dirty Water (Status Quo)
09 Whatever You Want (Status Quo)
10 In the Army Now (Status Quo)
11 Rockin' All Over the World (Status Quo)
12 Don't Waste My Time (Status Quo)
13 Roadhouse Blues (Status Quo)
14 The Wanderer - Marguerita Time - Living on an Island (Status Quo)
15 Break the Rules - Something 'bout You Baby I Like - The Price of Love - Roadhouse Blues [Reprise] (Status Quo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16684678/VA-1990KnbwrthFstivlKnbwrthHuseKnbwrthBrtin__6-30-1990_02SttsQuo.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Live Aid - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-13-1985, Part 1: Status Quo, the Style Council, the Boomtown Rats, Adam Ant, and Ultravox

A couple of days ago, I finished posted the Philadelphia portion of Live Aid. Now it's time for the British portion (with all British or Irish musical acts), which took place in Wembley Stadium, London.

The basic idea was to have the concerts in Philadelphia and London happen simultaneously, with the acts in one city filling in the music-free gaps while the stage was getting prepared for the next act in the other city, and then vice versa. However, there was a five hour time zone difference. So the London concert began at noon, London time, while it was still seven A.M. in Philadelphia. The London concert ran ten hours, ending around 10 P.M., London time. However, only about five and a half hours of that contained music from London, since there was down time between sets and speeches and so on. The Philadelphia concert began at 9 A.M., Philadelphia time, and kept going until 11 P.M., Philadelphia time. However, that meant it ended at about 7 P.M., London time. So the last two hours were in London only.

Anyway, I explained the basics about Live Aid in my write-up for the first album of the Philadelphia show. Please refer to that if you want to know more about the concert in general. There's a Wikipedia link there as well. For this write-up, I'm only going to discuss the acts that played this part of the concert.

The London concert began with Status Quo. They seem to be one of the acts that wasn't liked by organizer Bob Geldof and the other insiders who decided who got to play. But they were so very popular in Britain that they were allowed to play anyway. Geldof even told the band's lead singer Frank Rossi, "It doesn't matter what the f-ck you sound like, just so long as you're there." Rossi says he replied, "Thanks for the f-ucking honesty, Bob."

The next band was the Style Council. They weren't hugely popular on their own, but it was lead singer Paul Weller's successor band to the Jam, which were more popular, and probably explains why they got a time slot.

The Irish band the Boomtown Rats came next. Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof was the lead singer, so it's no surprise they were included. Their popularity was waning at the time, and they broke up a year later.

Adam Ant was next. Ant shared the same manager as the Police, which was led by Sting, and broke up in 1983. Geldof later wrote in a book, "I thought [Ant] was a bit passe. But then so were the Boomtown Rats, and each represented a certain piece of pop history, so I agreed. I also thought that might entice him to encourage Sting, or perhaps all three of the Police." Ant was only allowed to perform one song. Ant was understandably upset when he later found out what Geldof said about him, and criticized the concert. (Geldof was successful in getting Sting to play, but the hoped for Police reunion didn't happen.)

In my opinion, this is a case in point why it was a bad idea that the decision on who to include was left to Geldof and maybe some other insiders. It was too important of an event to be left to the whims of which acts Geldof personally liked. But oh well, obviously what's done is done.

Ultravox was the final act for this part of the London concert. It's not surprising they played, since the band's lead singer was Midge Ure, and he was involved in organizing the concert along with Geldof.

I ran into many of the same problems with the London concert that I had with the Philadelphia concert. For instance, although all the music is here, sometimes the introductions were lost. Luckily, for this part of the show, I do have all of the introductions, but that's sometimes not the case for the other parts. Another problem was that the cheering at the ends of songs was sometimes cut off. So, like I did with the Philadelphia show, I patched in more cheering at times. 

This album is an hour and eight minutes long.

001 talk (Tommy Vance)
002 talk (Richard Skinner)
003 Rockin' All Over the World (Status Quo)
004 talk (Status Quo)
005 Caroline (Status Quo)
006 talk (Status Quo)
007 Don't Waste My Time (Status Quo)
008 talk (Tommy Vance)
009 You're the Best Thing (Style Council)
010 Big Boss Groove (Style Council)
011 talk (Style Council)
012 Internationalists (Style Council)
013 Walls Come Tumbling Down (Style Council)
014 talk (Tommy Vance)
015 I Don't Like Mondays (Boomtown Rats)
016 Drag Me Down (Boomtown Rats)
017 Rat Trap (Boomtown Rats)
018 talk (Harvey Goldsmith)
019 Vive le Rock (Adam Ant)
020 Reap the Wild Wind (Ultravox)
021 Dancing with Tears in My Eyes (Ultravox)
022 One Small Day (Ultravox)
023 Vienna (Ultravox) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/15748937/LveAidJFKStdiumLondnPA__7-13-1985_Part1.zip.html

I kept the same cover art format as for the Philadelphia show, except I replaced "Philadelphia" at the top with "London." I also kept the same format of using four small photos of the acts instead of one big one. In this case, that's Frank Rossi, lead singer of Status Quo, at the top left, Paul Weller, lead singer of the Style Council, at the top right, Bob Geldof, lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, at the bottom left, and Midge Ure, lead singer of Ultravox, at the bottom right. I didn't have room for a fifth act, so Adam Ant got the cut, since he only performed one song.

Status Quo - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: In Concert, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 7-7-1988

I've posted two albums of BBC studio sessions by the British boogie rock band Status Quo. Most of that was before they went into full on boogie mode in the early 1970s. I'm not a big fan of their boogie rock stuff, as I think a lot of it is samey. However, they did perform some shows over the years that were broadcast by the BBC, and a commenter recently asked if I could post more. 

So here's one. By 1988, the band had lots of hits, yet they still had most of their key long-time members. So it's a good time for a concert from them. 

In 2010, the band released a box set called "Live at the BBC." This comes from that. As a result, the sound quality is excellent. There's no talking between songs, but maybe they simply aren't talkative types. Some of the band's biggest hits are here, such as "Whatever You Want" or "In the Army Now," but others are missing. They also did some album tracks, as well as covers by John Fogerty ("Rockin' All Over the World," which was another big hit by them) and Chuck Berry "Bye Bye Johnny."

This album is 54 minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 28, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is the same, but I changed the title from "Volume 3" to "Volume 5" after posting two more BBC albums that came earlier.

01 Whatever You Want (Status Quo)
02 Little Lady (Status Quo)
03 Roll Over Lay Down (Status Quo)
04 Cream of the Crop (Status Quo)
05 Who Gets the Love (Status Quo)
06 Hold You Back (Status Quo)
07 Don't Drive My Car (Status Quo)
08 Dirty Water (Status Quo)
09 In the Army Now (Status Quo)
10 Rockin' All Over the World (Status Quo)
11 Don't Waste My Time (Status Quo)
12 Bye Bye Johnny (Status Quo)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Spyf94eU

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/3g2C7QtBp1tAEIR/file

The cover photo was taken at a concert in Munich, Germany, in May 1988. Unfortunately it only shows two of the band members.

Status Quo - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1970-1972

I just posted Volume 1 of Status Quo's BBC sessions mere minutes ago. I thought I'd post this second and final volume right after to show the contrast between the two. Compare the two cover photos, for starters. They look like different bands, but they're the same exact guys, just minus one member (and plus lots more hair!).

It's a lucky break that there was enough music to be able to split the volumes right at the turn of the 1960s into the 1970s, because the band's sound drastically changed right then as well. If you listen to the early songs on Volume 1, you'll see they started out doing rhythm and blues. So in a way they returned back to the type of music they started with, once psychedelic music was no longer popular. 

They had a hit with "Down the Dustpipe" in 1970. At that point, the band must have had the idea: "Let's do this exact same kind of boogie rock for the rest of our lives," because that's exactly what they did. However, in my opinion, their music from the early 1970s is more interesting than their later stuff. Yes, it's mostly boogie, but they still had more variety before firmly settling into a successful formula. Plus, also in my opinion, the early 1970s was a more musically creative time across the board, and this band rode that general musical wave.

The BBC sessions (taken from the official album "Live at the BBC") end in late 1972. There are three more sessions after that that I didn't include here. One is from 1973, but features different versions of the same songs done in 1972, so I didn't see any point in having duplicate versions. Then there's a session from 1989, and another one from 2005. Those are so far removed in time that I felt they didn't belong. In my opinion, it's a lucky thing the sessions end in 1972, because that's right when my interest in the group fades out. I can enjoy some boogie, but only some, and with this band I feel it's a case of diminishing returns since they didn't attempt to evolve their style at all. Your opinion may vary.

When I make these BBC albums, I like to search around and see if there are any good songs done on other TV or radio shows that merit inclusion. In this case, I found two, both officially unreleased. "(April) Spring, Summer and Wednesdays" was done on the German TV show "Beat Club" in 1970. "Roadhouse Blues," a cover of the Doors classic, as done on a Swedish radio show in 1971.

For Volume 1, most of the songs had BBC DJs talking over the music, which I fixed. Thankfully, around 1970, those DJs wised up and stopped that bad habit. This album is a case in point. There's only one example of that here, on the first song. As with Volume 1, I used the audio editing program X-Minus to remove the talking but keep the underlying music.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Spinning Wheel Blues [Edit] (Status Quo)
02 Down the Dust Pipe (Status Quo)
03 In My Chair (Status Quo)
04 Need Your Love (Status Quo)
05 [April] Spring, Summer and Wednesdays (Status Quo)
06 Roadhouse Blues (Status Quo)
07 Mean Girl (Status Quo)
08 Railroad (Status Quo)
09 Don't Waste My Time (Status Quo)
10 Oh Baby (Status Quo)
11 Unspoken Words (Status Quo)
12 Paper Plane (Status Quo)
13 Softer Ride (Status Quo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700496/STATSQO1970-1972BBSessonsVol2_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken in London in 1972. The two guys at the bottom were originally lower than I liked, making it hard to show all four of them without zooming out a lot. So I used Photoshop to move them up higher in the picture.

Status Quo - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1966-1969

I have that admit that I'm not a Status Quo fan. Or at least I wasn't, before I made two BBC sessions albums for them. As an American, they're a band that's not on my radar screen much at all. However, in Britain, they've had over 60 hits, more than any other band in history. If I thought of them at all, I figured they've done the exact same kind of repetitive boogie rock for decades.

And that's true. But it turns out they were much more interesting and varied in the 1960s and early 1970s. I now have a new appreciation of their music from that time period. I'll bet had they broke up in the early 1970s, they would have a cool reputation today, similar to other bands of the era, like the Move or the Pretty Things. But all that later boogie rock success steamrolls over everything else they did. 

Perhaps you're familiar with their songs "Pictures of Matchstick Men" and/or "Ice in the Sun," two hits the band had in 1968. If you listen to those, it's hard to believe they're from the same band known for all their many boogie rock hits. It reminds me of the band "Spinal Tap," that (in their fictional universe) had the hit psychedelic pop hit "Listen to the Flower People" in 1967 before becoming a heavy metal band in the 1970s. Amazingly, it's the same band - from the 1967 until the early 1980s, they only had one band member leave, in 1970. But if you like those two songs, you have a rough idea what this music here is like. 

Technically, and also in early Spinal Tap fashion, the band changed their name several times in their early years. They were first known as "The Scorpions." By the time of their first BBC session in 1966, the first three songs here, they were known as "The Spectres." Then for the next two songs here, in 1967, they went by "The Traffic Jam." They had to change that because it was too similar to Steve Winwood's more successful band "Traffic." So they changed their name to "The Status Quo" for their hits in 1968. But in 1969, they dropped the "the," and have been known just as "Status Quo" ever since. For simplicity's sake, I refer to them as "Status Quo" for all the songs here.

When it comes to BBC DJs talking over songs, I guess some artists got lucky and others did not. Status Quo was unlucky, because 12 out of the 17 songs here had DJs talking over their music. Happily, I was able to fix those using the audio editing program X-Minus. As usual, the edited songs have "Edit" in their titles.

I'd guess roughly about half of the songs here are covers and half are originals. Like most British bands of mid-1960s, they started out mainly doing covers of rhythm and blues songs, and you can hear that on the first songs here. When they switched to psychedelic pop around 1967, they started mostly writing their own songs. But they still had some songs written for them (including "Ice in the Sun"). And they still did the occasional cover of famous songs, such as "Spicks and Specks," "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)," "Things Get Better," and "The Price of Love."

All the songs here come from the official album "Live at the BBC." I didn't include five songs from that album that would fit in this time period, because they did two versions of the same song. In those cases, I picked the versions that had the better sound quality. Those five songs are: "Bloodhound," "Gloria." "Pictures of Matchstick Men," "Spicks and Specks," and "The Price of Love." 

I also didn't include the song "Black Veils of Melancholy," even though there's nothing wrong with the recording, because I'm trying hard to pretend that song doesn't exist. In my opinion, it's such a blatant re-write of their own "Pictures of Matchstick Men" that it's an embarrassment. Sorry if you like that one. You can still get that version from the official BBC album if you want.

Two songs, "Bird Dog" and "It Takes Two," have bonus track status due to having poorer sound quality than the others.

If you've never given early Status Quo a listen, this is a good sampler. Maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised, like I was.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Gloria [Edit] (Status Quo)
02 I [Who Have Nothing] (Status Quo)
03 Neighbour, Neighbour (Status Quo)
04 I Don't Want You [Edit] (Status Quo)
05 Almost but Not Quite There [Edit] (Status Quo)
06 Spicks and Specks [Edit] (Status Quo)
07 Judy in Disguise [With Glasses] [Edit] (Status Quo)
08 Pictures of Matchstick Men (Status Quo)
09 Things Get Better [Edit] (Status Quo)
10 Bloodhound [Edit] (Status Quo)
11 Ice in the Sun (Status Quo)
12 Paradise Flat [Edit] (Status Quo)
13 When My Mind Is Not Live (Status Quo)
14 Make Me Stay a Bit Longer [Edit] (Status Quo)
15 Are You Growing Tired of My Love [Edit] (Status Quo)
16 The Price of Love [Edit] (Status Quo)
17 Junior's Wailing [Edit] (Status Quo)

Bird Dog [Edit] (Status Quo)
It Takes Two (Status Quo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700493/STATSQO1966-1969_BBSessonsVol1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo dates from around 1967. Obviously! ;) I'll bet the band members were embarrassed by that look a couple of years later.