Status Quo legend offers Past, Present, Future tour - Bexhill

Francis Rossi brings his Songbook: Quo – Past, Present, Future tour to Sussex and Hampshire this autumn.

On Tuesday, November 10 he will be at Bexhill’s De La Warr Pavilion.

Past, Present, Future shows will include hand-picked songs from Francis’ many evergreen Status Quo classics plus some deep cuts. He is also working up a new medley.

Francis said: “The pressure is on once more as I have put together a really packed new show for autumn of this year. I’ll be keeping a whole lot of the hits in the set, of course, but also mixing it up with a couple of curveballs. These theatre shows are a great way to really connect with the audience and try something a little bit different.”

Francis will once again be joined on tour by guitarist Andy Brook, who co-produced the critically acclaimed 2026 album The Accidental with Francis and appeared on the sold-out 2025 Songbook tour.

It’s the perfect format for Francis: “I think my front is that I talk a lot but I love doing these shows. There's something I love about the intimacy you get with certain capacities. We started with 200-350 and it's getting bigger. And I like the fact that it feels like something is building. I love the fact that it feels like we're going somewhere. It takes me back to when we were a young band! I was brought up in retail and I love that sense of building something and creating something.”

The shows have had a great response – not that Francis will read the reviews. As he says, if you read the positive reviews then you would also have to entertain the negative ones.

Partly the evening-with format for Francis began with the suggestion that he should write a book: “I think they were just wanting me to slag Rick (Parfitt) off. I could do that but I'm not prepared to do that.”

But somehow the thinking progressed to sitting down with the guitar and mixing reminiscence with music: “At first I bought an acoustic guitar just to do a couple of songs at the end of the second half, and something just struck with me. I just love strumming. I'm not a particularly good lead guitarist. I'm just happy strumming and everyone said how much they enjoyed it and I think that appealed to me… again as an insecure little show-off.

“I think it is that contradiction in who we are in show business. I don't think of myself as being in show business. I think I'm in music but someone was saying to me it is show business and I suppose it is. But I know that I am basically a shy guy. Which I know is a ridiculous thing to say. But that's the contradiction in doing what I do!

“And I love the fact that it feels direct. There's nothing negative about it but sometimes you do realise that you do have to be a bit careful when you're talking about certain things. It seems there is a body of unknown people that decides what is extreme or not. You might be telling a rock ‘n’ roll story and people will be saying ‘Oooooh!’ But of course it's savoury. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll story! It is always going to be savoury!”

But the fact is we're all in a different world to the world that Francis and the band started out in – a world in which they were given that name, a name which now brilliantly reflects their continuity and their longevity: “The manager came down the wooden steps into the basement and he had all sorts of names, things like Quo Vardis. He said Status Quo and we just said yeah. But it's been going so long now.

“But really it's all just music to me. I am like a punter. I love music. I think how I started when I was a young kid aged 14 or whatever just strumming. And I may well be strumming still when I am an octogenarian. I might just decide to do The Everly Brothers’ catalogue!”

Inevitably the enjoyment has changed over the years: “And I enjoy it more now. I always liked being part of a band, part of a team, and that's the great thing when you're a young man fighting against the system and trying to make yourself popular. And then each of you are thinking that you are the reason why you are successful when it happens. And then with any band, the cracks start to appear. Every band I ever heard has cracks that appear. It seems to be part of every act that there has ever been. The rot sets in.

“Rick and I were as close as anybody could be. We were so happy in each other's company, and that did it upset John (Coghlan) and Alan (Lancaster), not heavily but it was almost like an affront. And then it would upset other girlfriends and wives, and you would have management trying to get in between me and Rick to control the act and so Rick and I drifted apart. But I've got a picture of Rick here from a couple of months before he had that major heart attack and I can see in his face the Rick that I knew and the Rick that I loved. Even in the last few months there was the odd day when we were happy in each other's company. I still dream about him. I had a positive dream about him the other day which was good. And I try to remember the positive times even though there were negative times too.”

Francis is relishing the mix of new dates and old favourites: “The show lifts the lid on a lot of what went on in the world of Status Quo, and I build in plenty of songs along the way – lots of my classic hits, but there are also versions of songs that I haven’t tried in the format before, and I have to say they sound fantastic. There’s a lot to get through so don’t be late!”