Throughout its fabled 54-year history, Electric Light Orchestra has had but one consistent conductor: Jeff Lynne. This past March, that conductor, soon to be 77, decided to finally call it a career. But not before the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer gave the music world one last run of his iconic classic rock hits. That begat the Over and Out Tour for Jeff Lynne’s ELO, which landed in Los Angeles to perform at the Kia Forum over the last weekend of October. For two consecutive nights, Lynne and his 12-piece ensemble delighted a packed house with 90 minutes of peak 1970s futuristic nostalgia in sonic form.
After a stylistically spot-on opening set from the L.A.-based rock band Rooney, ELO emerged in front of the artifice of a giant, ring-shaped spacecraft, complete with lasers, lights, and an LED screen in the middle. The band opened the proceedings with “One More Time”—off of Jeff Lynne’s ELO’s second album, 2019’s From Out of Nowhere—before diving directly into the original ELO’s beloved catalog.
Between “Evil Woman”, “Do Ya”, and “Showdown”, Jeff and his band gave the audience a triple dose of the classical-meets-disco-meets-prog-rock that not only put ELO on the map, but made them one of the pre-eminent acts of the ‘70s. That vibe carried well into “Last Train to London” and through the interlude of “Believe Me Now”.
On the heels of a brief ballad break by way of “Steppin’ Out”, ELO got back to their classical rock ways with “Rockaria!”, complete with an operatic singing accompaniment, en route to the band’s very first composition, “10538 Overture”.
The radio standards came in even heavier during the second half of the set. The daydream-iness of “Strange Magic” gave way to the 1950s-esque doo wop of “Sweet Talkin’ Woman”. Following the balladry of “Can’t Get It Out of My Head” and an abbreviated version of “Fire on High”, Jeff and his troupe dove right back into the core of their genre-bending songbook. The falsetto-fueled harmonies of “Livin’ Thing” paired perfectly with those of “Telephone Line”, along with its own tugs on teenaged heartstrings.
ELO also gave voice to Xanadu, the 1980 film starring Olivia Newton-John for which Jeff wrote half of the songs. But rather than presenting the title track—which still stands as ELO’s one and only chart-topping single in the U.K.—the band opted for “All Over the World”.
That came two songs before the group’s lone number one single in the U.S., “Shine a Little Light”, which occasioned many a phone flashlight to illuminate the room. In between, Jeff Lynne’s ELO dropped in “Turn to Stone”, complete with the song’s signature frenetic vocal support.
To close out the evening, ELO brought out its hardest-rocking banger, the 12-bar-bluesy “Don’t Bring Me Down”, before coming back out for an encore of the happy-go-lucky “Mr. Blue Sky”.
Throughout the show, the band performed in front of a panoply of trippy visuals that morphed in a manner characteristic of certain AI-powered graphics. From trains and telephones to devilish women and blue skies, the circular screen in the middle of ELO’s life preserver-shaped extraterrestrial vessel hit all the right notes.
So, too, did Lynne. The vitality and fidelity of his voice belied his age while ringing true to each of the many classics he penned decades ago. He sounded not like an aging icon on a farewell tour, but rather a rock star who could continue on for years, if he so chose.
Alas, the end has nearly arrived for Jeff Lynne’s ELO. The current U.S. tour will conclude on October 29th with one last show at the Footprint Center in Phoenix. Come July 13th, 2025, Lynne and his band will re-emerge in their home country of England for what is sure to be a momentous farewell show at Hyde Park in London. Head here for tickets.
But while ELO as a live music entity may cease at that point, Lynne’s songs will undoubtedly continue on looping through classic rock radio stations and curated streaming playlists alike, as they have for so many years.
And though Jeff Lynne’s ELO will be missed, there will still always be air somewhere on Earth that’s filled with the distinct sound of the orchestral rock music that he helped to pioneer.
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