Status Quo’s Rick Parfitt may be gone, but Francis Rossi says ‘the other one’ is still rockin’

FRANCIS ROSSI is about to face the anniversary of Rick Parfitt’s death.

And the day will bring memories flooding back of hearing his Status Quo pal speak from beyond the grave.

Rick, 68, died in hospital in Spain on Christmas Eve last year after developing an infection after suffering his third heart attack.

The call breaking the news came through to Francis from his manager, but the veteran rocker insists it wasn’t the only voice he heard that morning.

“I was sitting down at home and I heard Rick say, ‘You see, Frame, I didn’t die on a show day,” Francis, 68, told iN10.

“Frame was what he called me and that’s was how I knew it was Rick. I know people who have said they’ve heard the voices of the dead and thought it was rubbish.

“I know what I heard, though, and it’s just the sort of thing he’d have said as he’d have known the hassle involved in cancelling a show on the day.”

Rick had been dogged by ill-health and had quadruple heart bypass in 1997.

Francis was witness to one of his close friend’s heart attacks after Rick collapsed on tour in Turkey in the summer of 2016.

“To those of us in the band he died in June,” he revealed ahead of Quo’s latest tour date in Glasgow.

“We watched him die on the floor.

“It wasn’t very nice. I remember uncrossing his feet while the medical people were working on him. They did everything to him and when they took him away he was dead.

“In the morning we got the message from the doctors that he was on life support. We were told he probably wouldn’t make the day and if he did it wouldn’t be very pleasant.

“By the time we get to London that night, Rick’s sitting up in bed having a cup of tea. That’s how strong he was.”

With the first anniversary of Rick’s death imminent, Francis admits it will be a day of reflection.

But as he reaches an age when attending other’s funerals has become commonplace, he takes a bleakly humorous view of death.

“It’ll be a bit weird but it won’t be morbid or maudlin. I might actually smile that morning because of what he said.

“I can see that in weeks, months, years, when I pop my clogs people saying, ‘That’s the other one gone now’.

“Death is just one of the facts of life.”

Before Parfitt’s death, the toll taken by his heart attacks was such that he was told he could no longer do live shows.

He gave his blessing to guitarist Richie Malone stepping in as his replacement and the rocking that’s been going on since breakthrough hit Pictures Of Matchstick Men in 1968 continues.

One change has been doing a mix of acoustic shows and the more traditional electric.

The current tour, Plugged In – Live And Rockin’, will be a fully-electric affair.

The Scots date is at the Clyde Auditorium but with half a century of music-making and more than 6000 live shows, Francis has memories of slightly less salubrious venues north of the border.

“I remember playing the old Apollo in Glasgow where the balcony used to move up and down by about three feet.

“When we’d do stuff that had the audience jumping up and down, our guys who were doing the mixing up there got off the balcony just in case it went.

“And I remember even further back when it was Green’s Playhouse. We had long hair and the old-school bouncers really didn’t like us and were waiting for us when we came off stage.

“I can’t quite figure out how we got out of there.”

Despite a lifetime of rocking, Francis insists he’s fit and healthy and savouring his musical journey as he heads towards his 70th birthday.

“We had commitments at first and I didn’t particularly want to go out with some new guy,” he adds.

“But Richie does things his way and maybe older bands do become complacent and what’s happened has made us pull our socks up.

“I don’t know whether it’s a case of going out trying to prove something but I haven’t enjoyed myself this much for a long time.”

Status Quo, Clyde Auditorium Glasgow, December