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    • Jeff Lynne’s ELO bids farewell with a hit-packed farewell show at Kia Forum – Daily News
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    Jeff Lynne’s ELO bids farewell with a hit-packed farewell show at Kia Forum – Daily News

    Harry Posted on

    When Jeff Lynne After reviving the Electric Light Orchestra in 2015, he arranged a return to the intimate Fonda Theater in Hollywood, perhaps testing the waters to see if anyone was still interested in a band that hadn’t played a proper show since 1981.

    Oh, well they were interested. That night at Fonda It was thrilling to hear Lynne sound as if she had been away for just a moment rather than years, delighting the 1,200 or so fans who packed the theaters, including Lynne’s fellow stars. Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh and Eric Idle.

    A year later, Jeff Lynne’s ELO played three nights at the Hollywood BowlAccompanied by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, he continues to record and perform with the band he formed in the early ’70s and enjoyed great success throughout that decade and into the ’80s.

    But now, at 76, Lynne is saying goodbye to all that.

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    Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra performs at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Saturday, October 26, 2024. (Photo: Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

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    The Over and Out Tour, which started at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert in August, played its last show in California at the Kia Forum on Friday and Saturday, October 25-26. That’s it after a rescheduled date in Phoenix on Tuesday. For Lynne and ELO.

    This was by no means a funeral held at the Forum on Saturday. How can there be so many songs (15 Top 20 hits) that have brought so much joy to millions of listeners over the years?

    How could it be that giant spaceship stage prop, an image from ELO’s ’70s album cover, that lit up and shot lasers across the stage and arena all night long?

    The show opened with “One More Time,” a song from Lynne’s 2019 ELO album, and did we mention how awesome that spaceship is? In 70s vernacular, ELO’s 1976 release “A New World Record” was one of 12 albums I ordered from the record club for a dime. – the flying saucer is still totally annoying.

    This may be the least known of the 20 songs Lynne played onstage for 90 minutes. There’s no such problem on the follow-up, “Evil Woman”, as the piano riff that opens the song is instantly recognisable. Same goes for the power chords that launch “Do Ya,” technically a cover of a song by ’60s band Move, which included Lynne and ELO co-founders Roy Wood and Bev Bevan.

    None of ELO’s original members remained in the group. Keyboardist Richard Tandy, who joined the band in 1971 and played with Lynne in the studio and on stage, died in May. But all 12 members of the current lineup, including the string section of two cellos and a violin, are strong musicians.

    Other early set highlights included “Showdown,” a slower, vaguely Western-themed song, and “Last Train to London,” a late-70s electronic dance-pop song.

    Lynne remains a shy presence on stage. His thick hair, beard and sunglasses look the same as ever. Dressed mostly in black, he stood on the right side of the stage singing and playing guitar, but he rarely said more than thanking the audience and occasionally gave a thumbs-up to their cheers and applause.

    Others in the group provided more action throughout the night. Backing vocalist Melanie Lewis-McDonald’s operatic vocals shined on songs like “Stepping Out,” and she and backing vocalist Iain Hornel added great harmonies to “Strange Magic.”

    Violinist Jess Cox stepped forward to join Lynne on several songs, including the instrumental of “Fire On High” and the fiddle solo leading into one of the ELO favorites, “Livin’ Thing.”

    This song, like many songs on the show and in the ELO catalogue, has the kind of strong melody and simple lyrical tone often featured in the song’s title, making it easy for fans to sing along as they did almost every song on Saturday. .

    Standout moments from the night’s second episode included “Phone Line,” complete with the ringing phone and the subtlest sound effects that ushered it in. “Turn To Stone” soared with waves of racing beats.

    “Don’t Bring Me Down” closed the main set; Crunchy guitar riffs and powerful drum beats enhanced the song as Lynne and the backing vocalists sang the song’s simple yet catchy lyrics.

    Lynne and the Electric Light Orchestra have always acknowledged a love of and influence on the Beatles, both due to similar melodic sweetness and a shared interest in using the recording studio to unlock new sounds. This effect is most evident in “Mr. From the pounding piano chords that open the number to the stacked harmonies, rattle-like percussion, swelling strings and more.

    The song, which came as an encore, only reached the 36th place in the charts when it was released in 1978, but since then it has become more popular with each passing year and has reached more than 1 billion streams on Spotify.

    Saying goodbye, Saturday was the perfect choice: The crowd was on its feet, singing and dancing and doing things and smiling at the musician whose creation had brought one last bit of blue sky into their lives.

    Harry
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