What, after all, would rock and roll be without ego?<\/p>\n
The question feels rather inevitable after taking in the spectacle that is the latest release\u2014the concert DVD Live In Hyde Park<\/i>\u2014from Jeff Lynne\u2019s ELO, the artist(s) formerly known as the Electric Light Orchestra. <\/p>\n
The ELO family tree is rather notoriously tangled, of course. Ever since co-founder Roy Wood departed in 1972, Lynne has been the driving creative force behind the band, its chief songwriter, lead voice, lead guitarist, producer and mastermind. But despite the impression left by modern-era releases Zoom<\/i> and now Live In Hyde Park<\/i> that ELO exists entirely within the imagination of Jeff Lynne, for most of its 1975-1982 heyday ELO was in fact a functioning band featuring the considerable talents and contributions of keyboardist Richard Tandy, bassist\/backing vocalist Kelly Groucutt, drummer Bev Bevan, and string players Mik Kaminski, Melvyn Gale and Hugh McDowell.<\/p>\n
Of course, by the time ELO called it quits the first time around in 1986, the band was down to Lynne, Tandy and Bevan, and the group\u2019s ill-fated stepchild ELO Part II slogged onwards for a decade-plus with Bevan as the only founding member present. Once Lynne bought Bevan\u2019s share of the ELO name back in 2000, he held 100 percent control over the group\u2019s legacy, which is neither entirely fair nor terribly unjust.<\/p>\n
This concert DVD chronicles Lynne\u2019s first live performance in 28 years, fronting a 12-person band with multiple keyboards (the one center stage manned by Tandy, the only familiar face from past ELO lineups), background vocalists and percussionists, plus, oh yeah, the entire BBC Concert Orchestra. Even with all that going on around him, the centerpiece of the show remains Lynne and his distinctive, keening voice. And you have to hand it to him there\u2014a lot of vocalists lose range as they age, but in his mid-60s, Lynne can still swing from his normal singing voice to falsetto and back with practiced ease.<\/p>\n
The setlist covers almost all the highlights from ELO\u2019s considerable oeuvre, from breakthrough singles like \u201cEvil Woman\u201d and \u201cLivin\u2019 Thing\u201d to disco-influenced hits like \u201cSweet Talkin\u2019 Woman\u201d and \u201cTurn To Stone,\u201d even turning back the clock all the way to early milestones like the superb, rather proggy \u201c10538 Overture\u201d and the raucous \u201cMa-Ma-Ma Belle.\u201d The band reproduces the original studio recordings with remarkable fidelity, a testimony to Lynne\u2019s exacting standards as a producer\/arranger, and the crowd is way into it, singing and dancing and clapping along to every familiar tune. <\/p>\n
The pickings are naturally much thinner from latter days, as the band tailed off pretty severely after 1979\u2019s Discovery<\/i> (represented here by \u201cDon\u2019t Bring Me Down\u201d). In fact, the only two songs that post-date it are the bounding, \u201950s-flavored \u201cRock \u2018N\u2019 Roll Is King,\u201d from 1983\u2019s Secret Messages<\/i>, and the Traveling Wilburys cover \u201cHandle With Care.\u201d The latter tune, co-written by the entire Wilburys lineup of Lynne, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan, is indeed rendered with great care and affection, and dedicated to Harrison and Orbison.<\/p>\n
The show is, in essence, a celebration of ELO\u2019s unique facility for crafting \u201cclassical pop,\u201d the imaginative hybrid first explored on the Beatles\u2019 Sgt, Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/i> and Magical Mystery Tour<\/i> releases. The only classic ELO tracks that feel like they\u2019re missing here are a cover of a Beatles cover (the group\u2019s superb take on Chuck Berry\u2019s \u201cRoll Over Beethoven\u201d) and a handful of similarly upbeat album cuts like \u201cDo Ya\u201d and \u201cRockaria.\u201d It seems middle-aged Lynne just isn\u2019t into rocking out full bore any more.<\/p>\n
This DVD package also includes the 60-minute career-spanning bio Mr. Blue Sky: The Story Of Jeff Lynne & ELO<\/i>. The last two words of that title are basically a footnote; this is the Lynne story start to finish, but it\u2019s quite engrossing at that, focusing at least as much on the maestro\u2019s notable work with the Wilburys (individually and collectively) and the Beatles as on ELO or even his solo work. <\/p>\n
Next up for the seemingly rejuvenated Lynne is another release under the \u201cJeff Lynne\u2019s ELO\u201d banner called Alone In The Universe<\/i>, further cementing the impression that, in Lynne\u2019s view, the entire ELO legacy exists only as a subset of Jeff Lynne, Inc. Indeed, a September 26 post on ELO\u2018s Facebook page casually refers to \u201cJeff Lynne, the creative genius behind ELO\u2026\u201d without a hint of self-consciousness or irony. One could of course blame this on an over-zealous intern, but the man\u2019s own documentary bio includes a quote early on referring to him as \u201ca control freak.\u201d It\u2019s remarkable to think a creative force of Lynne\u2019s stature and accomplishments could still be insecure enough to engage in this sort of puffery.<\/p>\n
Oh well. The music is excellent, and the stories entertaining. Enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":32559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[9745],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-44323","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jeff-lynnes-elo","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44323"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44323"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}