Status Quo - Live! (2LP) (1977) - €20,00

Live! is the first live album by British rock band Status Quo. The double album is an amalgam of performances at Glasgow's Apollo Theatre between 27 and 29 October 1976, recorded using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio.

"The worst album we ever made," said guitarist and singer Francis Rossi. "I always thought we were better than that. Rick Parfitt and I were left to mix it, and we went through the recordings of the three nights we played, only to pick the first one." "I disagree with my old pal there," countered Parfitt. "There are bits of the live album that still give me goosebumps."

The album includes a typically extended version of "Forty Five Hundred Times". "The first part of the song was the song, but we'd make the extra bits up…" recalled Parfitt. "You'd just know when to get softer and then take it somewhere heavier. It was incredible. You'd be swept away by this rollercoaster of music. The only way to end it was to nod, 'Shall we finish it here?'"

Recorded, with perfect timing, just as Status Quo hit their live peak, 1977's double Live! album is, contrarily, a timeless reminder of just how much power and excitement was bound up in the band through the mid-'70s -- and on, in fact, into the early '80s. 

It would be several years before Status Quo turned into the faintly embarrassing cabaret singalong that scarred the latter years of their career, a fact that Live! broadcasts via a picture-perfect snapshot of the last calm before that particular storm. 

Touring to support 1976's Blue for You (U.S. title Status Quo) album, the band is still reaching back to the dawn of the decade for material. "Junior's Wailing" and "In My Chair" both date back to the tentative days of 1970, as the band prepared to slide from psych to boogie without knowing whether there was even an audience for such a shock. 

The fact that there was, of course, would be celebrated with some of the most visceral singles of the decade. "Roll Over Lay Down," "Rain," "Don't Waste My Time," and, most impressively, "Caroline" all slough off well-loved 45s, to be transformed into veritable showstoppers, while the LP epics "Forty-Five Hundred Times" and "Roadhouse Blues" receive marathon workouts that all but defy gravity. 

The mid-'70s were a golden age for double live albums, and from Frampton Comes Alive! to Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous, the era is littered with what now rank as classics. 

Live! effortlessly takes its place alongside those most hallowed of halcyon howlers, and no matter what else Status Quo might have become in later years, this is what they sounded like before that happened. 

Side A

A1.  Junior's Wailing   (5:20)  

A2.  Backwater / Just Take Me  (7:35)  

A3.  Is There A Better Way   (4:28)  

A4.  In My Chair   (4:07) 

Side B

B1.  Little Lady  / Most Of The Time  (6:50)  

B2.  Forty-Five Hundred Times   (17:10) 

Side C

C1.  Roll Over Lay Down   (6:07)  

C2.  Big Fat Mama   (5:00)  

C3.  Caroline Drum Solo   (6:35)  

C4.  Bye Bye Johnny   (6:18) 

Side D

D1.  Rain   (4:50)  

D2.  Don't Waste My Time   (4:55)  

D3.  Roadhouse Blues   (14:23) 

Notes

Release:  1977

Format:  2LP (Gatefold)

Genre:  Hardrock

Label:  Vertigo Records

Catalog#  9286728

Vinyl:  VG

Cover:  VG

Prijs: €20,00