Live! : "The worst album we ever made"

The guy never liked the rock star role or world.

He was once quoted as saying that everything recorded with the FF was "70% to 80% shite"

Only thing I'll say is, anyone who fell out with the guy, it's always been the same theme and the same problems.
He just keeps trying to make out he was the good guy and always the victim and everyone else was wrong.

Make up your own mind

...and his favourite song is MT....yeah right

I prefer my opinion of it and at the end of the day that's the one that counts not that of Francis ' Gerald Ratner' Rossi.

One of the quirks about Quo had been how Francis and Rick often had opposing opinions about various albums.

For Rick, the 'Live' album was a true representation of the band at that time and he loved the album, warts n' all.

For Francis, the album wasn't a true representation of the band at that time and he was disappointed as he thought the band were better than that.

Following the split with Alan L and JC there may or may not have been a bit of gamesmanship or point scoring going on from Francis to distance himself from that era? The new band were up and running and he was full of enthusiasm again and suddenly he was being critical of Quo's earlier Glory years.

I expect there are a few interviews with Alan out there with his views about the albums and the past but one of the ways he suffered, having been a founder member, was how the press and sections of fans started to just want to hear what Rossi and Rick had to say.

Plenty of artists hope their best work is just around the corner and what motivates them in a sense and they don't like to think that their best work is behind them and already done. Francis has been no exception.

I think Francis has enjoyed the rock shuffles etc with Quo and not entirely anti-rock. He was turned on by stuff such as 'Roadhouse Blues' as much as Rick when they first heard it and decided that it was the road they should take.

In the 70s, even though the band had that gang mentality and attitude of not caring about what their critics/press thought about  them it seems to me that the criticisms did sink in and hurt at another level. Not all fans of the band possibly realise that back in the 70s the band were hugely criticised at times.

The drugs probably helped them maintain their egos and attitude but beneath the veneer perhaps Francis, especially, believed some of it and wished for greater recognition as a writer and player.

Though for him, his idea of recognition and praise was say in the form of releasing the series of singles from 'Back To Back'. He was annoyed that the Record Company failed to release 'Too Close To The Ground' as the follow up after MT. In his mind that would have given Quo some credibilty having had Ol'Rag Blues, Mess of Blues in the charts as well.

Drugs seem to have played a considerable part in bringing down the band. When Francis was doing his drink and drugs in '84 he thought nothing of letting Quo hit the buffers and trying to bail out. He lied to us at Milton Keynes. He said they would continue to work together as a band but he actually has said since that he had no intention of working with Alan and even probably Rick again after MK. The End of the Road potentially being the end of everything Quo related.

The odd thing had been that he was still doing drugs when setting off with Bernie and their ill-fated duo stuff. Not surprising that it went nowhere as work became secondary to sorting out getting coke each day in the studio. A farce really.  

  

I never really liked the live album- I think it’s more to be appreciated if you were at gigs at that time.

I much prefer to listen to the Frantic Four from 13/14- they are better purely on listening to them in my opinion