John wrote:I also saw Quo about 15 years ago at the Henley Festival. They were past their best by then, but still rocking. I've got some photos taken from a distance, somewhere. Sitting directly in front of me was John Madejski (local entrepreneur) and Cilla Black.
Every time I hear "Gerdundula", I remember something that happened almost 40 years ago.
In the early / mid 80s, there was this local rockabilly band whose members were maybe four or five years older than us. We kinda looked up on them, and we eventually became really good friends. Some of the coolest people I've ever known. They had a couple of original songs, but they mainly played versions of 50s rocking stuff, combining well-known songs with others that were more obscure. Because they knew we liked it, they always dedicated their version of Johnny Burnette Trio's "Tear It Up" to us, which was quite cool. One of them, the lead guitar player, eventually ended up playing for a major band that enjoyed big success in the late 80s. The guy hated that band, he played just for money. It was much better than working at a factory. Every time we met, we talked about the "old" times and laughed. A big Ricky Nelson fan.
Anyway, they were once playing an open air summer concert at a local football place. There were maybe a hundred people seeing them that day. So they were reaching the end of their concert, and here come maybe half a dozen of damn local junkies, the kind of dangerous people everybody feared. They usually carried knives with them, and it was no good to be close to them. So those bastards, this time carrying wooden sticks, get to the front of the stage and start yelling for a Status Quo song. The guys in the band saw what was going on, and out of nowhere, they start playing "Gerdundula", while the junkies start to dance and jump like mad. After the song ended, the junkies left the place, so the band saved everybody's asses, ha ha.
