"ROCKIN' ALL OVER THE YEARS"
- Status Quo in the year 1976
Apollo-picture and ticket by kind permission official Apollo-website.
concerts, publications, charts, miscellaneous
chronological:
17.01.1976: Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt present their favourite songs by other artists in the BBC Radio 1 show "My Top Twelve".
27.01.1976: kick-off of a german tour with 8 shows.
06.02.1976: release of the single "Rain" (Parfitt) in UK. B-Side is the Rossi Young song "You lost the love". The single notched up at No.7 of the british singles-charts.
12.02.1976: start of a Status Quo series in the german youth magazine "BRAVO". The first part showed a report about Francis Rossi. Headlined "Von der Penne in die Band" translated "From school into a band". (for collectors: Bravo No.8/76 (frontcover:King Kong)). click here for scan of the Bravo-report. The series continued: Bravo 9 (19.2.Rick Parfitt) Bravo 10 (26.2. Alan Lancaster) and Bravo 11 (4.3. John Coghlan). BRAVO was and is still a million seller in Germany.
26.02.1976: Status Quo with a performance at the "Top of the Pops" with the song "Rain". Moderator: David Hamilton
27.02.1976: kick-off of the UK "Blue for you" tour with a total of 14 concerts. Special Guest: Shanghai with their drummer Pete Kircher. Pete joined Quo in 1982.
The tour is a massive success with sell-out shows.
01.03.1976: Charts-entry of the single "Rain" in Germany. The single peaked at No.27 and spent a total of 9 weeks in the german charts.
12.03.1976: release of the "Blue for you" album in UK. All 9 songs featured on this album were self-penned and again the album was self-produced. It was recorded during November and December 1975 in London's Phonogram studios. The album is marked as one of the best produced albums and sees the band on top of their career. The album release was followed by a massive promotion campagne throughout Great Britain. As a result of the marketing deal between Status Quo and the Levis Strauss company Status Quo and the album were promoted in jeans shops all over the country and ads were seen at the football matches of the first division which were broadcasted on BBC's 'Match of the day' and even at the league cup final. 3 songs of the album were included in the setlist of Quo's live-shows. (Rain, Mystery Song und Mad about the boy; some early shows performed also the song 'Ring of a change')
15.03.1976: charts-entry of the "Blue for you" album in Germany. The highest position was No.15. The album spent a total of 8 month in german's album-charts and was voted on No.27 of the best albums 1976 (even better than Queen's "A night at the opera"). In the south german radio station "SDR3" the album was voted for "album of the month" and all songs of the album were played.
20.03.1976: the album "Blue for you" entered the UK album charts.
27.03.1976: "Blue for you" new No. 1 of the UK album charts. The album is No.1 for 2 weeks and spends 27 weeks in the charts with 8 weeks in the TOP10. It was voted on No.25 of the best albums of the year. (origin: Hit-Bilanz "British album charts 1956 - 1980")
06.04.1976: Germany: the first time that the "airplay-charts" were listed. According to the airplay a song had in the radio stations all over Germany, the songs were listed in these charts. So from this date onwards there were 2 single-charts. And of course Status Quo's single "Rain" entered at the very beginning this charts and climbed up to No.18 and spent 5 weeks in this charts.
April 1976: the record company PYE released another compilation of songs of the PYE-period. The label "Hallmark Marble Arch" released the album "Pictures of Matchstickmen" (HMA 257) (in UK available on cassette too)
25.05.1976: start of 8 shows in Austria and Germany.
28.05.1976: an incident happened at Vienna's airport were it came to a scuffle between austrian police and Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt and Alan Lancaster. The 3 band-members were put in prison and stayed the night there.
29.05.1976: after the incident at the Vienna airport the band was able to continue their tour and played a thunderous show in Esslingen/Germany in front of a 7.000 crowd.
June 1976: Rick Parfitt was ill on arthritis and the band couldn't do any live-shows.
02.07.1976: release of the single "Mystery Song" (Parfitt/Young) from the album "Blue for you". The b-side is the Parfitt/Lancaster composition "Drifting away" from the "QUO"-Album ('74) The single reached No.11 of the UK-singles-charts.
15.07.1976: a promo video of the song "Mystery Song" was played at the "Top of the Pops" show. Moderator: Noel Edmonds.
24.07.1976: another remarkable festival when Status Quo headlined the Cardiff Castle festival. 20.000 people turned up to celebrate Status Quo. Other bands were: Budgie, Curved Air, Strawbs, Jackie Lynton, Hawkwind.
29.07.1976: again Status Quo at "Top of the Pops" with the promo-video of "Mystery Song". Moderator: David Hamilton.
06.08.1976: the single "Mystery Song" entered the german Airplay-Charts and was played that often in german radio stations that it peaked at No. 8 of this charts and spent a total of 12 weeks in the airplay charts. Most notable: the single itself couldn't chart in the german singles-charts.
September 1976: the band announced, that they will play live-shows at the end of October to record a live-album. The band chose the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow. Within hours all 12000 tickets for all 3 shows were sold out. They decided for Glasgow because the scottish audience was one of the cheerfulst and the Apollo Theatre was a favourite venue of the band.
The PYE record company released another compilation "The Rest of Status Quo" (PYE PKL 5546). Because of the success with the new record label, PYE released endlessly Status Quo compilations to anticipate on Quo's success.
27.-29.10.1976: the legendary venue "Apollo Theatre" in Glasgow saw 3 shows of Status Quo, which can be counted to be one of the best played shows in the band's long history. At the beginning the 'Apollo' was a cinema with a capacity of 4000 people which was one of the biggest cinemas in UK. In the 70's it was rebuilt to a concert venue and the best bands of the world played there. In 1984 Quo played their last shows at the Apollo. Soon after it was tumbled down. Its reputation in the music scene is such high, that there's an own website about this venue. ...more The scottish audience is known as very enthusiastic and on these 3 show days the crowd went that wild, "it was shaking the foundations". The first show October 27 was eventually chosen to be the one for the live-album which was released in 1977. Special guests at the 3 shows were "Nutz".
14.11.1976: kick-off of a far east tour with 5 shows in Japan, 8 shows in Australia and 1 gig in New Zealand.
17.11.1976: the show in Tokyo's Sun Plaza Hall was recorded by the japanese record company and was released in 1977 as the Live-album "Tokyo Quo".
November 1976: in UK the cassette "The Music of Status Quo Vol.1 72-74" (Vertigo 7215038) was released.
03.12.1976: release of the single "Wild Side of Life" (Warren) in UK. B-side "All through the night" (Lancaster/Rossi). Originally the song was a Hank Snow hit in 1952 called "Honky tonk woman" but the band decided to choose the version of Tommy Quickly and the Remo Four from 1964. The single was produced by Roger Glover (Deep Purple). The single entered the UK singles charts and peaked at No.9.
23.12.1976: a promo-video of the song "Wild side of life" was played at "Top of the Pops" show. Moderator: Noel Edmonds.
Andy Bown contributed on 2 singles and one album of the band "Jack the Lad".
at the "Otto-Wahlen" of germans youth magazine BRAVO Status Quo was voted on No.9 of the best bands of the year 1976.
Remarkable: the dutch fanclub was featured on the cover of the dutch single releases.
UK discography 1976:
Single: Rain (Rossi/Young) / Lost the Love (Rossi/Young) Cat.No.: Vertigo 6059 133
Single: Mystery Song (Parfitt/Young) / Drifting away (Lancaster/Parfitt) Cat.No.: Vertigo 6059 146
Single: Wild Side of Life (Warren) / All through the night (Lancaster/Rossi) Cat.No.: Vertigo 6059 153
LP: Blue for you (Vertigo 9102 006)
LP: Pictures of Matchstick Men (HMA 257)
LP: The Rest of Status Quo - (PYE 27 984 XAT)
Cassette:"The Music of Status Quo Vol.1 72-74" (Vertigo 7215038)
Charts 1976:
Rain - No. 7 (UK)
Rain - No. 27 (Germany)
Mystery Song - No. 11 (UK)
Blue for you - No. 1 (UK)
Blue for you - No. 15 (Germany)
Miscellaneous:
1. a band with a surprising melodic rock sound appears from America. "Boston" with the album "Boston".
And the highlight of the year "Hotel California" from the Eagles.
And then there were those very rocky tunes from "Down Under" of a band who became one of the flagships of hardrock: AC/DC with their "High Voltage" album.
But Englands answer of the year was the stunning "Rising" album from Rainbow. For many one of the best hardrock albums ever. The guitar solis by Ritchie Blackmore featured on the 2 tracks of the b-side are the fastest ever played.
More good albums in 1976: Wings over America (Paul Mc Cartney) - A day at the races (Queen) - Run with the pack (Bad Company) - Made in Europe (Deep Purple) - A new world record (Electric Light Orchestra) - Black and Blue (Rolling Stones)
2.Hits of the year in UK:
Singles: 1. Save your kisses for me (Brotherhood of Men) 2. Dancing Queen (Abba) 3. Don't go breaking my heart (Elton John / Kiki Dee)
Albums: 1. Greatest Hits (Abba) 2. Songs in the key of Life (Stevie Wonder) 3. At the Speed of Sound (Wings)
3. Football: FC Liverpool won the english championship and Glasgow Rangers were scottish champions.
4. Films of the year: "Omen" - "Rocky" - "All the president's men" - "Car Wash" - "The man who fall on earth" (David Bowie) - "Taxi Driver" - "King Kong" - "Carrie".
