I really like ELO, but after I saw them in concert in '78 or '79, I decided they were NOT meant to tour! They were HORRIBLE. And the show lasted ONE hour. I paid $50 for two tickets (that was a lot for a teenager making minimum wage at Ron’s Krispy Fried Chicken) and it lasted an hour. Ouch. 
Geet, you art correct about ELO not sounding good live. When you try to take copmlex, heavily-layered music (see all of “Out of the Blue”) you will run into problems. Especially if you’ve only got 7 sevens guys trying to play a couple of dozen instruments! ABBA had the some problem, but compensated by having a zillion people on stage. There was a recent release where the band was recorded live at Winterland in 1976 and it’s pretty good.
On the “grooooooossss” thing, I’ve also read that Jeff Lynne claims it means nothing! Whatever…
I meant it in the nicest way and actually not at you since you did get it right. I should have been more clear but was afraid of getting clocked for overuse of :Ds
Big Fan!
I was listening to Don’t Bring Me Down today, and noticed the first few lines have the same melody as Four Little Diamonds (one of my favorites). As in:
You got me runnin’ goin’ out of my mind
(I used to think she was the greatest thing)
You got me thinkin’ that I’m wastin’ my time
(I really cared; gave her a diamond ring)
Don’t Bring me down. No, no, no, no no.
(She said she’d rather die than ever leave me)
Well, if one song is good, two is better.
Speaking of Four Little Diamonds, when I was in bands, we used to start every other song, “Is this on? Ok, after four… four!”
Face The Music my fave…
I hope you were lucky enough to get the edition of the album which had the long versions of “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Kaioma,” with its great, freaky violin solo.
I was the original ELO fan in our family, then my little brother took over and played them to death. Now I’m back to liking them, and I mean all the records Jeff Lynne made with them. My favorites (not neccessarily in order):
OUT OF THE BLUE – lush, dramatic, tuneful
DISCOVERY – Don’t let the word “Disco” scare you. This has songs alternately beautiful and light-hearted.
ELO II – My first copy of this five-song album was on 8-track! Only the first and last tracks were uninterupted. Recorded back in the days when “classical rock” and “anti-war protest” meant something, even if we didn’t know what.
A NEW WORLD RECORD – for the hyper-sensitive adolescent in all of us.
ARMCHAIR THEATRE – Lynne’s solo album. Just buy it.
FYI: You can sometimes find a 3-CD box set of FACE THE MUSIC, DISCOVERY, and A NEW WORLD RECORD for $20. A great deal!
I was in the local English pub, the George and Dragon in Phoenix, this evening for a going away party and thumbed through the Jukebox selections. Everything is strictly UK origin but I was astonished to see a Wizzard album with Roy Wood staring at me from the cover. I didn’t stay long but I was tempted to queue up See My Baby Jive or *Bend Over Beethoven[/I}.