Get ready to rock, Ciudad Quesada! The rocking good Status Quo tribute band Fakers Quo is set to take the stage at the town’s best-loved local club on Friday, June 20, promising an unforgettable evening of classic rock and deep-cut gems that will thrill fans of all ages.
Fakers Quo are a passionate group of lifelong Status Quo devotees who bring a unique twist to their performances. Describing themselves as “just a bunch of Quo fans playing Quo”, the band is moved by an infectious love for the iconic British rock band’s music. Their setlist is carefully put together with status quo’s timeless classics like “Rockin’ All Over the World” and “Caroline”, alongside rarer album tracks that the original band seldom ever performed live. These guys dedication to exploring the deeper corners of the Quo’s catalogue makes Fakers Quo a must-see for both casual listeners and hardcore fans.
“We’re all true Quo fans with a love and passion for the band and their music,” the band shared on their social media page. “We play the classics, but we also delve a little deeper, playing some of the tracks we as fans would love to hear live. So give us a follow, and we’ll see you on the road somewhere in 2025!”
Doors open at 7pm, with the band hitting the stage at 9pm. Reservations are available from the club and by calling 711 076 139. the clubb quesada is on Calle Toledo 21, Ciudad Quesada.
READ MORE….
Status Quo / Live! review
STATUS QUO’S Francis Rossi there, asked by a journalist if he had listened to all eight discs of the new, expanded edition of Quo’s 1977 album Live! And it’s a good question, applicable to all expanded editions, whether they’re live shows, unreleased tracks, or new mixes: who would want to listen to it all? After all, whatever the album, the original, substantially shorter, release is what the band or the record company wanted at the time: adding extra discs risks imposing bloat on the listener.
Fortunately, this is not the case with Live! Originally a double LP comprised of songs taken from Quo’s shows at the Glasgow Apollo on the 27th, 28th and 29th of October 1976 – three apparently identical sets – this new box set features the original album plus all three concerts in their entirety. It is, in short, not a box for the faint-hearted: not only is there a lot of music, but it is, without exception, unremitting Quo boogie – no acoustic section, no ballads – and it is raw-sounding. Very raw-sounding: unlike other classic live albums of the era such as Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous, there are no overdubs. No wonder, then, that Francis Rossi hated the live album on its first release, calling it “the worst album we ever made”.However, all these things are what make Live! what it is – pure, unrelenting Status Quo, not so much a wall of sound as a tsunami of sound, crashing onto the listener again and again with endless force. Yes, the set list for each night doesn’t change – not for Status Quo the indulgence of swapping out a few songs or trying something new – which means that each set begins with ‘Junior’s Wailing’ and ends with ‘Bye Bye Johnny’. Yes, Rossi’s between-song banter isn’t much different from night to night. Yes, we get a drum solo tacked onto the end of ‘Caroline’ every single time. And yes, they do seem to play ‘Roadhouse Blues’ quite often (probably 4400 times, in fact). But this is a Status Quo record, and it doesn’t so much take no prisoners as gather up its prisoners and throw them screaming into an active volcano.
Quo were at their live peak at this point: the Frantic Four of Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt, Alan Lancaster and John Coghlan were an unbeatable combination, and when they all locked into place, the boogie was relentless. Here, with an already powerful back catalogue to choose from – albums as excellent as Piledriver, Hello! and On The Level – they are jaw-droppingly good.
This is, from start to finish, an incredibly entertaining collection. In part this is due to the aforementioned relentless boogie: the back and forth sound of the Status Quo “shuffle” which makes all their fast songs so addictive – a sound so great that the 90s dance act Apollo 440 made a great record just by sampling the guitar intro to ‘Caroline’. It is, for some musical reason, a sound which you can listen to for hours; trance for people who hook their thumbs into the belt loops of their jeans. Eight CDs of it? Bring it on.
But also it’s a testament to something that people rarely acknowledge about the Quo: they knew a hook when they heard it. From their earliest days playing at Butlins, then as The Spectres and The Status Quo, with covers like ‘We Ain’t Got Nothing Yet’ and ‘Down The Dustpipe’, through pop psych like ‘Ice In The Sun’ and ‘Pictures Of Matchstick Men’, to the imperial boogie phase (‘Down Down’ may be the greatest single of all time) and the return to pop in the 80s with ‘In The Army Now’ and ‘Margarita Time’, Quo were a rock band who understood pop. Even in the purest rush of that guitar wall assault, there have always been hooks: and at their peak, Status Quo made deafening, unending rock records that were also great pop songs: ‘Caroline’, ‘Rain’, ‘Paper Plane’, ‘Mystery Song’.
And they were showmen: theirs was a career bookended by those Butlins appearances, fun stunts, and knowing how to get an audience going. On Live!, Rossi never sounds happier than when he’s cajoling the crowd into singing along and joining in: his patter changes slightly from night to night, but he’s as much MC as lead singer and – for a man noted for dourness – he’s clearly having a great time (as are the audience: there’s a reason this album was recorded in Glasgow).
So who would want to listen to it all? Everyone! Maybe not all in one sitting, but this reviewer played all eight discs and enjoyed it. Each concert is different in its own way: the final night begins with a spectacularly sweary introduction by Jackie Lynton, the second night is a bit shaky at times, that drum solo varies from night to night, and so on: minor differences, perhaps, but they make each night unique, and give each show its own identity.
As for the sound – it is raw, but it’s brilliant. As rough as a bear’s divorce, but anything else would be wrong. In the 1970s, as previously noted, live albums were subjected to the same perfectionism as studio records: bum notes were excised, flat vocals were re-recorded, and any hint of rawness was removed at source. Perhaps Live! could have been mixed differently at the time, but there are very few live recordings that sound like this: an earthquake riding on the back of a speeding brontosaurus that’s being fired from a space cannon. And, with this new mix (the audio for this release has been mixed and mastered from newly-discovered 24-track multi-track tapes), even Francis Rossi says, “It’s so much better than it was”.
This is a live album that captures the sound of a band at their peak, a band who were brilliant live, and also the sheer thrilling experience of being in the audience at a fantastic rock concert. Listen to it all, turn it up and throw yourself into it.
Leave a Reply