Quo fan in the seventies

In terms of social groups - well Quo became increasingly popular with females as the 70's progressed. They obviously had female fans much earlier than this, but I think it was the WSOL/RAOTW period where they started appearing much more at gigs and not just buying singles and albums - and that timing coincided with my arrival at Live gigs also. Finally becoming old enough at 17/18, and having a good circle of friends for safety in numbers made it possible for me.

My personal experience, being at college in those days, was that  (if you could get passed those who were inherently snobby about Quo at any cost) actually quite a lot of people with quite diverse tastes in music liked Quo, or got to like them through being open minded enough to give them a chance. I remember taking two punk friends to a Hammy gig and they loved it. They had only known and heard of the likes of Caroline and Down Down beforehand. They related to the total energy and commitment of the music, and the amazing atmosphere that band and fans created.

Its no surprise at all to me, therefore, that Quo were well respected in punk/new wave circles in the late 70's.

However, such respect in these places made no difference to the music reviewers and critics and I remember these same friends of mine being totally baffled by the reviews after they had been to the gig and seen the proper truth for themselves.

That was exactly the problem - the band had an image that some people didn't 'get' unless they were forced to listen to 'obscure' album tracks, or, much less likely, be persuaded to go to a gig. I still wonder though how many of these reviewers actually watched the gigs they professed to be writing about, or had a clue what they were supposed to be watching/listening to. They had made their mind up what they were going to write before the first chord had even been struck.

I think that as much as Quo's success in the early days had been through word of mouth, its also true that at the other end of the spectrum they suffered from negative word of mouth in the ways just described. The difference was that the negative stuff was three chord jibe assumptional crap, as opposed to the first hand positive experience word of mouth that had earned them increasing numbers of bedrock fans in the very early days.

Musical snobbery at its finest (or not so finest)

Apr 15, 2016 19:21:34 GMT cactuspete said:

I have a more simplistic answer,

I'm holding it here in my mind, so please don't be unkind. Don't talk, just let me unwind