Which order did you discover Quo

1-POMM on the radio upon release. Bought the single. Heard nothing of them until 1975.

2-On stage as support to Rush in 1975. Never heard any song before from that set-list. 

3-Bought these in order on 8-track in 1975: OTL, Hello, Piledriver, Quo, Blue For You, Live Apollo (lp), RAOTW (lp), that's when the big let down started.

My mother made me aware of Status Quo when I was at the age of 6 or 7. Think it was Down Down playing on the radio. My mom introduced me to a lot of bands and artists in that time, most of them I still like. From that early moment on, everytime when Quo was on the radio, the volume was turned up to eleven.
When I was old enough to buy records, in 1983 or so, the first one I bought was Rockin' All Over The World. Especially Hold You Back I played over and over again. A friend in school turned out to be also a Quo fan and he had all the LP's. He taped DOTH, OTL, Live At The NEC, Blue For You, LIVE, Hello and Just Supposin' for me. I played the cassettes over and over 'till the soundquallity went really bad. In the meantime my younger sister had bought Hello on LP. I wanted to have it desperatly but she didn't want to give the LP to me. I myself then bought Piledriver with the epic coversleeve. My schoolmate asked me if I wanted to go see the Quo at their End Of The Road Tour in the IJsselhal in Zwolle. It was midweek and I had a test at school the next day so I said no. Still regret that decision.
After that CD's came and over the years I bought about everything Quo had released on cd.

This thread has made me remember juke box singles (the ones with a
very large hole in the middle)

Usually there was no sleeve but they were very cheap. One of the first things I bought was the down down jukebox single. It's A and B side both had me very hooked...

September 2014- Rave On, followed by Cadillac Ranch, Carol and Roll Over Beethoven. I thought they were a cover band.

When POMM came out I liked Mike Rossi's singing on TOTP and his Steve Marriott haircut. That was about it really.

But next year Make Me Stay came out and I felt impelled to record it off the radio on my steam-driven tape recorder. It was a resounding miss, so I must have been pretty quick off the mark to catch it!

A couple of years later Down the Dustpipe appeared. That was really a good record and probably kickstarted the rest of their career. (This was even noticeable to a dozy teen non-fan at the time.)

Then In My Chair hit TOTP. I really liked that and went out and bought it. On the back was Gerdundula.

That was the last Quo single I bought for a number of years because I went off to college and didn't have a record player. So buying singles went into stasis for a while. I didn't even consider the albums. I relied on my radio and I don't recall John Peel ever playing anything from the albums.

In 1975 ROLD appeared on ... you guessed it, TOTP. I wasn't too sure but it seemed like worth a punt, and it had a live version of Gerdundula on the back, which sealed the deal.

A bit after that a mate of ours was doing weekend discos and had a copy of Blue for You. I have no idea why, he wasn't a fan in particular, either he or his DJ partner thought it was a good idea. He lent it to me. This formed my enduring view of Quo albums - a collection of peepy pop songs with three or four really corking rockers that make it all worth while. (Of course I found out soon enough that a lot of their non-corking-rocker songs are also very good. You cannot GET more peepy than All The Reasons. And there are many other treasures on those albums.)

In the meantime, I had been clobbered by Accident Prone and Supposin' I was working by then, so I had a bit more money, but I don't think that made the difference. I think life-stress was part of it, dealing with work, commuting and landladies. Quo are terrific stress-busters.

I nearly bought Live. I think Nicky Horne played the whole thing on Capital Radio one weekend. But I didn't, because it didn't have Gerdundula on it. (That was my test case. Just because I had something resembling a wage packet didn't mean I was splashing out! Dear me no!)

I was starting to think it might be a good idea to go and see them live. I knew they were good (had seen them on telly) but managed to miss them steadily during my time in north London. Just one of those things.

Missed them in 1981, sold out. So missed Spud, sadly.

1982 booked pronto. Hammy. The rest is history. I note that probably two thirds or more of the songs they played, I'd never heard before in my life, so the theory that people only go to hear the songs they know is, frankly, junk.

Then I started buying the albums in no particular order, whatver was in the record shop or the library or in one or two cases mail order, and discovered their many treasures. Things like Oh Baby and Fine Fine Fine, and that Quo Sound which is kind of dry with harmonies and no slush. I don't think they really knew what they had.

Within two years of becoming a fan, the old band imploded, with Alan being ousted. It's something I very much regret, but the recorded output was already going tits up and they were still Quo Live, no doubt about that at all. I must have been in fan mode as I bought one or two of the vinyl singles I wouldn't touch with a barge pole now. The albums I just bought on cassette, there was usually something I liked there, but that wasn't the point. The point was the next run of gigs.

The real disappointment was ITAN. It's a good album of itself, I always liked the title track, but they were no longer "in chaos" by then and the album made it very clear that their sound had changed, possibly for good. I kept hoping they would notice they had taken a wrong turning, but it never 'appen.

Otherwise, all was well until Francis started messing aroun' with Roll Over Lay Down. The live slippage started. It was only slight, but for me it was in exactly the wrong place. I didn't actually skip a tour till LOTE, though, and that was partly by accident. He was slurring his singing too. It got beyond a joke.

I like many of the late albums, but I have a difficult relationship with QPQ, and skipped Bula (without regrets) and the Aquostics (despite liking some of the ballad versions) and I have not yet bought Backbone, though I think I will in due course. And I have a gig booked for winter 2020, but did not take up the opportunity to book a second one.

I always was a cautious fan

It's really interesting to see on these histories how many of use came in part way through, or piece by piece, until we ended up being fans.

Yes, great post Mrs F! Shame you missed out on seeing them originally with John, but at least you had the reunions

I'[m very lucky to have found them. I'm not sure what it was that made me click on something new by them...I think the very first new song was ROLD, which was like "holy shit, where did that come from?"