Status Quo: Hello Quo! (DVD)

Starring: Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt, Alan Lancaster
Director: Alan G. Parker
Running Time: 152 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: October 29th 2012

It’s 50 years since the band that would become Status Quo first started forming, when in 1962 schoolboys Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster came together to make music. This lengthy documentary tells the story from those very early days and goes through the whole Quo story, from the numerous fallings-out and line-up changes, the drug-taking, rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, and on to their later demotion from Radio 1 playlists and becoming elder statesmen of rock.

There’s a slight feel with Hello Quo! that it’s an attempt to reassess the band and rejuvenate their image. For many people the Quo is just a bunch of aging duffers who pop up every so often to remind us they had some slightly cheesy hits several decades ago. This documentary wants to take us back to a time when those songs were new and make us remember what an immensely popular and important band they were, scoring an unprecedented 22 top 10 hits and finding success all over the world. Although tunes like Rocking All Over The World have perhaps suffered from their background familiarity, there is undoubtedly a reason they’ve stayed popular for so many years. It also wants to suggest Quo isn’t a spent force who now rest of their laurels, as they’re still bringing out new albums that sell well.

The documentary’s main problem though is its eye-watering length. While the Quo Army might be happy to get as much music and interview footage with band members old and new as possible, two and a half hours is a lot of Quo for everyone else. It would be alright if it was an incredible story full of near-death drug experiences, gunpoint arguments and hedonistic orgies, but while there’s a little bit of that, they simply don’t seem exciting enough to sustain the interest of more casual fans for 152 minutes.

There are quite a lot of asides and little stories that may be interesting on their own, but merely clog up the documentary as they wander away from the central story of the band. When it gets to the point where there’s a lengthy sequence about their brief appearance in Coronation Street in 2005, it’s difficult not to feel that while there’s a pretty interesting shorter documentary here, the padding ends up making the band seem less interesting than it they have been.

That said, Hello Quo! isn’t bad, it’s just long. The documentary certainly got good access to the band, and unlike many similar attempts to create a ‘definitive’ documentary about a decades old group, pretty much everyone who’s still alive is involved, including numerous members of the band who’ve been part of the line-up, but who left for various different reasons. There’s also the likes of Brian May and Paul Weller, who pop up to remind us that while some may see Status Quo as a bit naff, they were once incredibly cool and created influential music. They did, after all, open Live Aid.

However ultimately it’s difficult to recommend the documentary to those who don’t already like the Quo. Fans will lap up every minute, but most others might find it all a bit too baggy and wish it had concentrated of the core story a bit more.

Overall Verdict: At 152 minutes and with access to Quo bandmembers old and new, it certainly lives up to its definitive documentary billing, but it’s perhaps a bit too long and meandering to appeal to anyone who isn’t already a fan of the group.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac