Status Quo: Francis Rossi on Scarborough Open Air Theatre and Halifax Piece Hall gigs

So he won’t say it definitively but, now 74, the frontman is sceptical about the prospect of him and his bandmates rocking all over the world into their eighties.

“I’m not sure that Quo can do that. I don't want to say it's the last because it won't be fair,” he says. Fans have been through it before, he adds, “been told it's the last gig, the last electrics, the last this, the last that, just to exploit the fan and get him to come along and pay more for a ticket. Can’t do that again. It was never our idea in the first bloody place but there we are.”

Rossi is a reliably candid interviewee on many subjects - his 2019 autobiography was called I Talk Too Much while, gamely, he answers the phone singing Good Morning from Singin’ In The Rain - and his genuine enthusiasm for dates at Scarborough Open Air Theatre and Halifax’s Piece Hall is apparent.

He says: “I've always loved playing Scarborough. We've done that one a few times. There’s just something quite magical about it, where it is. It's an outdoor gig that's kind of (just) there - it isn't set up through tents and a stage brought in, it's there, which is quite unusual. And we've had great results in great gigs there.

“I've heard a lot about the Piece Hall, it sounds like, again, it’s a very, very nice place to play. Believe me, the things we do through the summer, to have a place that's actually nice to play is something.”

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It doesn’t matter where they play, though. Quo fans are a special breed and will turn out in force for as long as Rossi and the band - sadly without the late, great Rick Parfitt - feel up to performing.

From the Pictures of Matchstick Men era in the late 1960s to opening Live Aid at Wembley in 1985, there have been numerous iterations of the Quo.

But the 1970s is where most would visualise them – heads down, hair falling to the floor, denim-clad legs spread and fists punching their Fender Telecasters into no-nonsense rock and roll for an adoring audience of head-banging blokes.

With anthems like Down Down, Caroline and their more definitive cover of John Fogerty’s Rockin’ All Over the World, they rightfully fought their way into the canon of British classic rock.

But it is a bit more complicated than all that. Rossi admits in his autobiography that his trademark bravado was all front for a man who was and is overwhelmed by anxieties and prone to painful self-analysis.

“I definitely still am very insecure, I think,” says Rossi. “I learned to do that Jack the Lad when I met Alan Lancaster (Quo’s late co-founder and original bassist) and his family.”

Rossi grew up idolising his cheerful, Italian-descended father, while Lancaster’s family was more obviously working class south London.

"I found that intimidating, so I developed that somewhat,” says Rossi. “There is an angle of humour to everything, it's almost like the Carry On movies. There's always that innuendo going on somewhere. And I find if I make people laugh, I think they like me.”

He believes that need goes back to a moment in his childhood, which he recounts in the book. After smiling at another schoolboy, he was hit hard with a plimsoll, a memory which stayed with him.

Recounting this to bandmate John ‘Rhino’ Edwards many years later, the bassist told Rossi that his own father had advised him to pick on the biggest boy as a way to assert himself – and Rossi wonders how many young men are made to do the same.

“And then my mind's rerunning that thing with me, I remember this kid hit me, I can see myself crying and holding my face and being really shocked, and he was running away. And then it struck me that he was frightened, too.”

He adds: “I'm still quite affected by this thing that happened to me when I was five years old.”

In July 1984, Quo performed a huge show at the Milton Keynes Bowl in what was supposed to be the end to their touring days. By Christmas, Rossi and Parfitt were back together for Band Aid. And the year after, they were in the studio with a fresh line-up – following the departure of drummer John Coghlan and Lancaster – featuring Edwards and keyboardist Andrew Bown, who still remain.

Touring resumed for many years – they even made the 2013 film Bula Quo! - but Parfitt died on Christmas Eve in 2016 after an infection following a shoulder injury.

Meanwhile, Rossi, like many musicians, had troubles with alcohol and cocaine but has been teetotal for years.

And before touring, he likes to get “match fit” with daily exercise like swimming and walking.

“The Quo gig, there’s something quite demanding about it physically,” he says.

“One of the things they say about this business is, it doesn't necessarily keep you young, per se, but it definitely keeps you going because I need to be in some sort of physical condition to do that.”

It comes back around to that question. While Rossi is doing more of his own relaxed, solo Tunes and Chat shows later in the year and can’t see himself retiring, that idea of Quo performing for much longer is treated with incredulity.

“Do I really think Quo will be all right in 2026, when I'll be 77? I'm not sure, I might get to that and you might be talking to me and I’m saying, ‘Sorry I didn’t think I could do it and I’m doing it’, but, I’m somewhat a realist in that respect. Really?”

Status Quo will perform at Scarborough OAT on June 2 and the Piece Hall, Halifax on August 13. Tickets: www.cuffeandtaylor.com