Status Quo – Live Review – The Piece Hall, Halifax

By Steve Crabtree, August 2024

Growing up, I was introduced to music by my parents.  My mum gave me the eclectic mix of Rod Stewart, Frankie Valli, and the Pet Shop Boys.  My dad gave me The Beatles, The Everly Brothers, and Status Quo.

The Quo were forever on in the car on his ‘mix’ tapes, and his copy of their Just Supposin’ LP was very overplayed on our stereo back in the early to mid-80s.

So, Status Quo have a huge place in my heart. And hearing their hits takes me right back to those car rides, with us singing ‘Margarita Time’ together in the car on the way to the football, or to my grandma’s.

“A fast start”

Anyway – fast forward to 2024, and they’re in Halifax. At The Piece Hall. And I was there. Along with 6000 others who were kitted out in denim, Quo t-shirts, or appropriate attire for the showers we’d been having since the late afternoon.

Bang on 9pm, the band – who’ve been doing what they do for over 50 years – entered the stage and got the welcome you’d expect from this audience, made up mostly of a hardcore following.

And before that applause and cheers had subsided, those chords kicked in that you just know are Status Quo. And it was ‘Caroline’ that they chose to start this show off with a bang. Straight after that, they appropriately went into ‘Rain’ with John Edwards taking the vocal, before Richie Malone stepped up to sing ‘Little Lady’.

It was a fast start from Status Quo, who might be termed ‘ageing’ by some but whose energy levels were up at the top of the scale this evening.

“Good-old rock”

Frontman Rossi was great with the audience.  He spoke to us all night, and his quips about the weather were nice. Even if we were the wet ones, subtly being the butt of the jokes.  And he let rip some decent Italian early on to throw off the interpreter at the side of the stage.  She played along well though and ‘signed’ whatever Rossi was saying. That had him saying “Ah, she’s making it up!”

It was that kind of evening though. A feel-good night, with genuinely brilliant, good-old rock.

And the songs on the Piece Hall’s sound system sounded so good too. We were encouraged to join in with ‘Softer Ride’, and a 15-minute medley was so good. That started with the lights, drums and guitars working together nicely for the brilliant ‘What You’re Proposing’, ‘Again and Again’ and more.

‘In The Army Now’ was a crowd favourite, and proved to be another singalong anthem. And the big hits came out when the rain had stopped and the darkness had well and truly set in. ‘Down Down’, ‘Whatever You Want’ and ‘Rockin’ All Over the World’ had Halifax bouncing, and brought the main set to a friendly-fierce close.

“More Rossi patter”

In the encore, we had more Rossi patter with three songs, ending with the brilliant ‘Burning Bridges’. You absorb that song a different way when you hear it live.  It’s fun, it’s uplifting, but at the same time it brings out a mellow euphoria. It does for me, anyway. Perhaps it’s evocative, who knows.

I went to this one with my wife, who asked towards the end if I think my dad would have come if he were still with us.  I’d loved to have seen a live music gig with him, and I reckon that yes – he’d have come along to see Status Quo in Halifax with me without any persuasion at all.  And I know, like me, he’d have loved it.

There’s a load of reasons why Status Quo have a huge section of their fanbase who’ve seen them well over 100 times.  And tonight’s gig was certainly one of them.

Images: Cuffe & Taylor