Jeff Lynne’s ELO

Artists: Jeff Lynne’s ELO

Venue: Birmingham: Utilita Arena

Date: 05 July 2025

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It’s a perfect to ending to an amazing show, and a fitting end to the greatest Pop/Rock acts that has ever existed. Thank-you Jeff Lynne for all the amazing music – “Over And Out.

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What a fantastic weekend it was for the Birmingham music scene as we said our final goodbyes to two of the second city’s best-known acts. On the same night that Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath took their final bows just three miles down the road at Villa Park, in the City Centre at the Utilita Arena Jeff Lynne brought his Electric Light Orchestra back to his home town for the first of five shows of the ‘Over And Out’ farewell tour. The huge, lighted ELO spaceship logo at the rear of the stage was certainly an impressive sight as you entered the arena.

Support came from Dhani Harrison, son of Beatle George. Now I wasn’t aware of Harrison’s music, but what we got was a form of self-indulgent, experimental Prog Rock that was full of extended sampled passages and hardly ever rose above a canter. Fine if you’re aware of his music and you like that sort of thing, and Harrison has a great band, but as a support act to one of the finest purveyors of uplifting Pop/Rock it was just so boring and seemed like a complete mismatch – and I don’t think I was the only one to think it. The audience applause was polite rather than positive, a large amount of people left the arena during the set, and those that stayed around my area seemed more interested in scrolling through Facebook or checking out the Wimbledon results rather than taking notice of the music. When Harrison announced “This is the last song” there was a huge cheer from my section of the arena – not a good sign. There seemed to me just one main reason why Dhani Harrison was asked to join the tour – more on that later.

As the light dimmed to rapturous applause and Jeff Lynne and his band took the stage just after 9 p.m., it was immediately apparent that something was not quite right, as the singer ambled onto the stage and stood awkwardly in front of his microphone with no guitar in hand. As Lynne revealed a few songs in, he had broken his hand in a taxi accident in London, but nothing would have kept him away from us for tonight’s show, and it was the first time throughout his whole career he had appeared onstage without his instrument. He certainly appeared to be a little lost without his guitar, and seemed to be in some pain and discomfort throughout, occasionally missing a few lyrics and seeming a little strained at times, but the audience didn’t seem to mind and helped him out every step of the way on what would certainly have been an emotional evening.

I had expected something a little more “epic” to open the show, but instead after a short intro that included snippets of some of the intro parts to certain ELO albums (such as ‘Time’ and ‘Eldorado’), the band launched into the up-tempo rocker ‘One More Time’, the only song aired from any of the more recent ELO records, which was swiftly followed by the stone-cold classic ‘Evil Woman’. From that moment on, it was hit after hit… after hit! With nothing else post-1980 in the set (1980’s ‘All Over The World’ being the “newest” of the hits), you begin to realise just how many hit singles Jeff Lynne has penned when you take into account the ones that weren’t performed – extraordinary!

‘Do Ya’, ‘Showdown’ and ‘Last Train To London’ followed, before the first breather of the evening. There were no real deep cuts in the set as there just wouldn’t have been enough time with all of the hits to play, but the one album track which was very welcome to me was the quite beautiful ‘Steppin’ Out’ (from ‘Out Of The Blue’), one of my all-time favourite ELO songs. This was followed by ‘Rockaria!’ which saw backing vocalist Melanie Lewis-McDonald wonderfully singing the song’s Opera parts, and resulting in what seemed to me was the biggest cheer of the evening so far at the song’s conclusion, however, going all the way back to the band’s beginnings for a stunning ‘10538 Overture’ to follow was even better!

The band that Jeff Lynne has surrounded himself with deserve a mention, for example bassist Lee Pomeroy (It Bites, Rick Wakeman, Steve Hackett) and guitarist Milton McDonald, but especially the adept backing vocalist/percussionist Iain Hornal who was always there to back Jeff up when he faltered, and also traded vocal lines with the frontman on some of the more up-tempo songs like ‘Do Ya’ and ‘Rockaria!’. He also proved his talents during the next section of the show; Lynne invited Dhani Harrison to join him on stage for a surprising inclusion of two Travelling Wilbury’s songs, ‘Handle With Care’ and ‘End Of The Line’. Harrison obviously handled his father George’s lines, but Iain Hornal took on both Roy Orbison and Tom Petty’s vocal parts, managing to sound distinctly like each of them, while also playing some nice guitar. Though I’d have probably have preferred a couple more ELO songs, it was a nice excursion and very well received by the audience.

I have my beloved Dad to thank for introducing me to ELO when he lent me his ‘Time’ cassette back when I was seven or eight years old, saying he thought I would quite like it (partly thanks to the robotic voice on the ‘Prologue’), and that’s when my love for Jeff Lynne’s song-writing began; so when the emotional ‘Can’t Get It Out Of My Head’ appeared and was met with a sea of lights in the crowd, I don’t mind admitting it brought a tear to my eye. Then, following the band introductions from Jeff’s right-hand man Mike Stevens, violinist Jessie Murphy came to the front of the stage to highlight her wonderful playing on a short section of the instrumental ‘Fire On High’ (the only other “deep cut”, from ‘Face The Music’) which led into ‘Livin’ Thing’, a real show highlight.

‘Telephone Line’ followed, the supplementing lasers making it an amazing visual spectacle, before a rousing run-in to the end, with ‘All Over The World’, ‘Turn To Stone’, ‘Shine A Little Love’, and ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’. And therein lay the only slight disappointment for me; nothing against drummer Donovan Hepburn (the only other “Brummie” in the band), but I really missed Bev Bevan’s thunderous playing on this song in particular. It’s a shame that Jeff couldn’t have buried the hatchet with his former band-mate for this final run of shows and had Bevan as a guest, even for just a couple of songs, likewise Roy Wood with whom Lynne started the band all those years ago.

The encore was short and sweet at just one song, but when it’s ‘Mr.Blue Sky’ that brings the curtain down, what more do you really need? It’s a perfect to ending to an amazing show, and a fitting end to the greatest Pop/Rock acts that has ever existed. Thank-you Jeff Lynne for all the amazing music – “Over And Out”.

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Review: Ant Heeks

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