Hello Quo - DVD

Film: Status Quo have been a fixture in the music business for fifty years now. The British rock band, which emerged from a schoolboy band led by Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster, has released 28 studio albums and several live albums, as well as nearly 100 singles, over the course of its career to date. In their home country Great Britain alone Status Quo could deliver 6 number 1 albums, 22 top 10 singles and more than 60 hit singles and were represented in the British single charts for almost 8 years. An impressive career, which has not only many highs, but also numerous lows.

Director Alan G. Parker (Monty Python - Almost the whole truth) has in his documentary Hello Quo the career of the band traced, from the musical beginnings of the band members to the formation of the band in 1962 as The Spectres, whose first records, however, flopped badly. Further attempts as Traffic Jam did not bring the desired success either. Only when Francis Rossi, Alan Lancaster and John Coghlan together with the former The Highlights musician Rick Parfitt appeared as Status Quo in 1967, the first chart successes were achieved. Over the years the band became more and more popular, but they were not immune to problems with drugs or quarrels among themselves. In 1981 drummer John Coghlan was finally fired and also Alan Lancaster left Status Quo in 1985 and later fought a bitter legal battle with his former colleagues about the band name.

With refreshing openness, in which it is also sometimes said that an own song or a whole album was really bad and with a good portion of self-irony, old and new members of Status Quo, but also prominent fans and companions such as Queen guitarist Brian May, manager Pat Barlow and even Thomas Gottschalk comment on the career of the band with all its sunny and dark sides. This is sometimes surprising, sometimes really funny and always very entertaining. Enriched with a lot of music, which is presented in the form of TV or live performances, this film is a gripping and, despite its impressive running time of over two hours, extremely entertaining piece of music history.

In addition to the numerous facts about the history of the band, the documentary also winkingly clears up once and for all with the prejudice that all songs of Status Quo would only get along with three chords. It is precisely this form of self-irony that makes the film and its protagonists so likeable. Hello Quo is superbly researched, extensively rehashed and entertainingly packaged. A must for all lovers of good music documentaries - and of course for all fans of Status Quo!

Picture + Sound: In the actual interviews, the picture quality is on a very good level. Here the picture has a high degree of sharpness, the coloring seems natural and the contrast very harmonious. In the archive material, some weaknesses such as slight soiling or blurring can be detected, especially in older footage. Overall, however, the picture quality leaves just as good an impression as the sound, which not only reproduces the interviews powerfully, but primarily the music sounds adequately from the speakers. Very good!

Extras: On the second DVD is once again almost three hours of additional material. The centerpiece is a 45-minute reunion live session of the original cast from Shepperton Studios, which can also be seen in short clips in the film, but can be enjoyed here again in full.

Continue with a 30-minute trip back to the childhood of Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster. The two visit places of their childhood and adolescence in Purley, dropping lots of interesting anecdotes along the way. Similarly, in Hayling Island, Rick Parfit retraces his past for just under 40 minutes. Two very interesting and intimate documentaries that are a perfect complement to the main film.

Finally, the bonus DVD offers interviews with the director (approx. 15 mins), Rick Parfait (approx. 21 mins) and Francis Rossi (approx. 24 mins). And indeed, after all the information from the documentary and the bonus material, there are one or two new details to be heard here. A comprehensive and for fans excellent bonus package. Very good!

Conclusion: Hello Quo is an excellent music documentary that goes into the impressive, at times very exciting and moving career of Status Quo with all its ups and downs in pleasant detail and with refreshing frankness. Current interviews, concert excerpts, photos and masses of archive material make the over two hour long documentary a must for all fans. However, a purchase is also recommended due to the extensive bonus material, which includes exclusive live footage of the band's reunion, which can be seen briefly at the end of the documentary.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp