To celebrate the release of Francis's latest album, "The Accidental", a special Q&A event took place in the stunning Union Chapel in Islington on 1st February. The venue was familiar to some Quo fans as the band used it for a "one-off" performance of the "Aquostic" album on 9th September 2016.
Described as "an outstore Q&A", the event kicked off with a playback of the album to the sold-out audience, before Francis took part in a Q&A session.
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Rhino gave one of his most amazing interviews on the US E:W:L Review Show on 6th February.
They played "Secretary", "Take 'Em Down" and "All The Girls Love A Bastard" before the 45-minute interview started (at about 1.30am for Rhino!). Ably assisted by a large glass of red, Rhino did well to field the questions from the "out there" hosts and this is not one to watch if you're easily offended!
Andy was interviewed by Mark Ellen and David Hepworth on the Word In You Ear podcast on 12th February.
It was an enjoyable half-hour ramble through Andy's length musical career with some focus on his recently-released "Out There" album.
Francis was interviewed by Ronan Lardner on The Live Wire podcast on Galway Bay FM radio on 16th February.
It was yet another promo for Francis's 2026 talk tour, with his show in Galway coming up on 14th April. The questions from Ronan were the usual fodder for Francis to talk... and talk!
The 17-minute interview can be heard in full here.
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John Coghlan was interviewed by Sandy Kaye on A Breath of Fresh Air, an Australian podcast show.
The 30-minute interview covered the full length of John's career from early Quo days to his current jazz-inspired Quo project. John was in good form, telling many of the stories he tends to bring out in these kind of interviews.
Francis was interviewed by Jackie Brambles on Greatest Hits Radio on 17th February. The full interview can be heard here.
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Francis was interviewed by Phil O'Neil on his overnight show on 2GB Sydney radio.
It was a rare Aussie promo outing for Francis and he talked about "The Accidental" as well as fielding the usual interview questions. He was in good form during the 15-minute interview but sadly seemed to pour very cold water on the idea of bringing his talk tour to Australia.
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South Australian Quo tribute band Oz Quo played the Heywood Wood, Wine and Roses Festival on 28th February.
The forecast heavy rains held off all day for this popular country town festival and it was still quite warm when the band took the large stage right on time at 7pm. They opened with "Caroline" and the excellent sound was in evidence from the start. It was a promising start - and "Juniors Wailing" to follow was even more promising! The lead guitar solo work on this song was spot on, a sign of things to come.
Crowd-pleasing "Rockin' All Over The World" and "The Wanderer" were despatched early in the set, before a lengthy foray into tracks from the "Don't Stop" and "Famous In The Last Century" covers albums, including "Don't Stop", "Proud Mary" (which the band got the go ahead to play from the headline band, the Credence cover act "Credenze"), "Rave On" and "Get Back".
It was good news for the few diehard Quo fans who'd managed to find each other down the front when the lead singer said they'd be playing a couple of "deep cuts" after all those covers. "Don't Waste My Time" was excellent with superb lead work on its tricky solos, backed up with "Paper Plane". While these are hardly deep cuts for Quo fans, they were probably new material for 99% of the neutral festival crowd but they went very well thanks to the musicianship and passion coming off the stage.
The band's version of "The Price Of Love" was very inventive - it was a hard version with real groove to it, but they somehow managed to sneak in a few verses of Smokie's "Living Next Door to Alice" (with the inevitable additonal expletives in the chorus!) and The Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)"! It was an impressive lengthening of this song, returning to their great groove to wrap it up.
"Down Down" and "Whatever You Want" were well received, both being played nicely. Given the location, the announcement of a couple of more "country songs" was welcomed by the encourageable crowd so "Wild Side Of Life" was given a decent treatment before the very unexpected "Rollin' Home"!
As the light faded, "The Anniversary Waltz (Part One)" went down a storm with the neutrals and "Hold You Back" was especially appreciated by us Quo fans.
The band left their biggest surprise to fairly late in their set and I've never seen a Quo tribute tackle this before. The intro made it clear, but they played a few verses of "Lonely Night" before switching into The Angels' "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again"! This was really clever, not just for the inginuity but also as a way to get the neutrals up and involved. The expletive-ridden response to the songs chorus is always guaranteed to get a crowd going and plenty of new folks joined us up front as soon as they realised what was going on.
The band surprisingly chose to end their time on stage with two non-Quo songs, choosing instead to "Quo up" a couple of Aussie classics in the shape of Daddy Cool's "Come Back Again" and Blackfeather's "Boppin' The Blues" (interestingly, Blackfeather were a support band during Quo's first tour of Australia with Slade back in 1973), both of which kept the dancers up front on their feet right to the end of their set at 8.30pm.
It was nice to meet the band after the gig to pass on my thanks for a great gig and their efforts to keep Quo music alive in this part of the world. They seemed genuinely happy to have seen a bloke in a Quo T-shirt air-guitaring to their 90-minute set! The excellent sound and standout lead guitar performance made this a really enjoyable gig, especially with such a welcoming and friendly country crowd.
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A feature interview with Francis appeared in the March 2026 issue of Guitarist magazine.
The five-page spread included lots of guitar and gear talk, of course, plus comments from Andy Brook and Hiran Ilangantileke. Some excellent photos of Francis added the article's appeal.
Revisit the February 2026 event list
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