Bon Scott celebration concert 2008

Joe Walsh? Wow!

Pic of Alan & Roy takes me back. 'twas there that Alan signed a photo I had taken of him in the 1975. He looked at it for a while and chuckled at the head down, hair dangling pose. It's in this thread about Nuff's illness. Dale discussed his diagnosis at this gig. (That's something I've not spoken about in 20 years!)

Whenever I read Alan's own statements about his health status, it sounded like wholehearted denial to me. When I saw him on the Frantic Four reunion tours at Wembley and in Stuttgart (where he couldn't complete the concert, with roadies supporting him, his bass playing stuttering on and off and a worried Francis taking over his lead vocals in Bye Bye Johnny) he looked, played and moved every bit like someone with an MS condition, an already severe one. Maybe the most athletic, muscular and "manly" Status Quo member could not admit to himself how frail and feeble he had become. Or maybe in his despair, he turned to snake oil merchants telling him about miracle cures and alleged "it's not really MS"-causes. Clutching for straws - and who would blame him. Around the reunion time, I remember Alan making light of his condition in a band interview and you could see Francis biting his lip. With his usual cruelty in observing things with himself or others, if he had been afflicted with MS himself, he would have probably quipped something along the lines of "I have MS, it's incurable, progressive and eventually fatal, so buy my records while I can still make them, I have many children!"

To this day, I believe the reunion might have played out differently if it hadn't been for Alan's health. Francis did not want to be responsible for Alan dying on the road (as Rick did, at least for a couple of minutes) and he - rightfully so - doubted that Alan, try as he might, could sustain performing at a level that would give Francis professional reassurance. That of course is Rossi too: "We're running a business, you know."

The reunion gigs warmed my heart, but the bass player on stage - Alan's vocals were fine on both tours - was only a shadow of his once propulsive, "always-pushing-slightly-ahead-of the-beat"-throbbing bass playing. If you compare Alan's reunion era bass playing energy with Rhino's, it's like comparing a battery on the verge of running empty to a nuclear power plant in full operation. And I'm writing this as a great fan of Alan's idiosyncratic bass playing style and force in his heyday. No one played root note with an intensity like him, but he played a lot more than just root notes.

On a lighter note, out of respect and love for the great man, I finally got hold of the Party Boys and the Bombers albums as CDs only recently (I only had that 90ies compilation "Life After Quo" until now). And his bass playing drew smiles on my face on both releases. I would love to see a boxed set compiling his songs - both with and outside of Quo. They could call it "(Un)Broken Man" (to this day one of my favorite songs of his). Isn't there such a thing as crowd funding?

A couple of years ago, they did boxed sets for each individual member of Crosby, Stills & Nash showcasing their respective songs - along with outtakes, demos, never released stuff. How great would it be to have that for Quo with a Rossi, a Parfitt and a Lancaster box? There would be enough material to make each box high quality. And of course, if you put all three beside each other, the emblazoned pictures of Francis, Rick and Alan headbanging would form the classic "Quo Row" - my juvenile collector's heart would rejoice! 

I think it would be more a case of, in the light of returning to stand in front of the Quo Army after nearly 30 years, not wanting to appear any weaker and more ill than he actually felt. I think admitting to the fans what was happening to him would have weakened his own spirit, and possibly pained and embarrassed him. For what it's worth, i think he did the right thing for himself, and he preserved his own strength and reputation as much as he possibly could - in fact he went above and beyond, so delighted to be back as he was. He showed more strength than he perhaps had, and that is how he wanted to be remembered - strong - and that is how we WILL remember him. If he had done any less, maybe that enduring memory of his strength wouldn't be such a thing. Also, i believe it has been mentioned maybe only once in another thread, there were other significant health complications with him. But with hindsight, i am sure the Quo reunions were even more significant for him and his family than we can perhaps imagine.

As you might have seen by now, my long article about Alan forms the next edition of the FTMO fan club magazine. It's a long piece covering both his time with Quo and his many contributions to the music industry here in Australia after Quo. I've included a lot of photos of rare clippings from a large collection of Quo scrapbooks I acquired from an Australian fan some years ago.