STATUS QUO has always been one of my mom’s favorite bands, so saying I’ve been listening to them since I was born isn’t a stretch.

Nowadays it’s easy to attend concerts abroad, but for one reason or another we’d only got the chance to see them live in 2009, in Madrid. We really should have tried harder to see them more. This gig at Campo Pequeno (Lisboa) was just as memorable, but without Rick Parfitt (R.I.P.) it just isn’t the same thing.

Even the arena tickets had designated seats and rows of chairs covered the floor. Yes, the audience was pretty mature, but guess how many stayed sitting when the first chords of “Caroline” rumbled? At some point, there was even a 50-something-year-old guy running in the aisle, putting an honest smile on my lips as I remembered that Homer Simpson t-shirt “never too old to rock”.

I danced, I sang, I screamed the mandatory “stand up and fight!” on “In The Army Now”, and of course I cried – tears of happiness for such an amazing rock experience, this time in my home country, and tears of heartache for Parfitt‘s absence.

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In loving memory of Rick Parfitt (1948-2016).