The latest I've heard is that we're entering an uncharacteristically busy period where most of the major labels have at least one high profile album on the schedule, all catering to very different demographics while also aiming for the same level of commercial success, and Sony would be crazy to have anything "new" from Jeff/ELO go up against the heavily rumoured next release in the ongoing posthumous series from stablemate Michael Jackson, which is apparently due to be announced any day now. At the very least, 2022 would also fit in with Jeff's more recent narrative of celebrating 50 years of what he's now referring to as JLELO, marking the point he assumed full control of the band following Roy's departure in July 1972. (Of course, Bev might have something to say about that since he was a legal partner up through late '99 - not that he's in much of a position to challenge anything now.)
The Muppets - Mr. Blue Sky Cheer up your weekend with The Muppets version of "Mr. Blue Sky"! ☀️ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=924179268508178
Bev can challenge the narrative by nicely pointing out that he was a 50/50 owner of ELO between 1972 and late 1999. That's 27 years. Nothing to sneeze at. And if Jeff has a problem with stating a historical fact, he has other issues to deal with.
A audio recording was uploaded to YouTube the last few days.....ELO live in San Diego on the A New World Record Tour, January 30, 1977. I've never head this and the heading says "master tape" (whatever that means). It is of a pretty good quality. Anyone know the story about this one? They do Eleanor Rigby. Never knew that.
Thanks. I stumbled upon it. Just would like to know whether this is a soundboard recording of the gig or just a fan recording. This sounds too good to be a fan recording given consumer recording capabilities in January 1977 (though I did notice some splicing in a couple spots). I loved hearing Kelly's comments before they played an extended version of Rigby (Hugh, Mel and Mik, and Jeff on a guitar solo played great). A fantastic Beatles tribute!
Timeline Saturday, January 29th, 1977 Casey Kasem said that the Electric Light Orchestra is the "World's first touring rock 'n' roll chamber group" before he played "Livin' Thing" at #28. Sunday, January 30, 1977 Electric Light Orchestra Setlist at San Diego Sports Arena, San Diego Setlist Fire on High Poker Nightrider Eldorado Overture Can't Get It Out of My Head Cello Solo Showdown Tightrope Telephone Line Rockaria! Livin' Thing Violin Solo Strange Magic Eleanor Rigby (The Beatles cover) Evil Woman Do Ya (The Move cover) Encore: Ma-Ma-Ma Belle Encore 2: Roll Over Beethoven (Chuck Berry cover) Monday, January 31, 1977 Electric Light Orchestra Setlist at The Forum, Inglewood Monday, January 31, 1977 Electric Light Orchestra Setlist at American Music Awards 1977 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxkTihkYTs8 Tuesday, February 1, 1977 Electric Light Orchestra Setlist at The Midnight Special, Burbank Note: Broadcast on Fri. Feb. 18 1977. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1iRhy7Rl8E
Thanks for the link. That Elinor Rigby YT clip is really worth a listen. Great cover, and wow...... a scorcher of a Lynne guitar solo. Don't think I've ever heard him play like this, tremendous stuff all around.
Thanks for this. I am unaware of any other full concert recordings from the New World Record tour. This is certainly an audience recording. Most likely Mike Millard (aka Mike the Mic) was the source: RIP Mike. Mike Millard - Wikipedia I thought that it was weird that Telephone Line received absolutely no reaction from the audience when the distinctive keyboard intro started. Once I checked the sequence of singles released from the album, Telephone Line had not yet been released as a single. Livin' Thing and Rockaria were the album's first two singles. Can't imagine releasing Rockaria before Telephone Line. Thanks for pointing out that great solo!
If that isn't one of Mike's tapes, then it's almost certainly from Dan Lampinski, since quite a few of his previously uncirculating audience recordings have been turning up recently, sourced from high resolution transfers of the original tapes, hence the "master" description. After years of this only being something that was documented, it's finally great to hear ELO tackling Eleanor Rigby, and I certainly wasn't expecting a full band arrangement. I can definitely see why this would be a rarity collectors might want to sit on for a while - it's an utter gem! Now, if only the mythical solo version of Ticket To The Moon that was dropped early into the Time Tour would finally surface as well...
Listening to the San Diego concert, it has struck me that perhaps the tour for ANWR was the peak of the band's live performances, though The Big Night and Time had their moments. Aside from the treatment of Eleanor Rigby, the strings sound pretty well in tune, given the technology and acoustics of the day - and Mik and Hugh each had a solo. But I think back to those days....no teleprompters for lyrics, no auto correct for voice and sound, no need for a musical director....basically you needed to be on your A game to have a great concert. Yes, minimal tapes were used, but those were more of an issue for OTTB. ELO were once a formidible live act, and the San Diego concert proves that. It is a shame that Jeff has not saw fit to release any other soundboard recording that may exist in the archives, because this version of the band rocked! Bravo to the seven members of ELO that night in San Diego!
The Muppets cover of Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra is better than Jeff Lynne's ELO solo from 2012-present!
After listening to that San Diego gig it makes me frustrated that The Big Night tour ever happened. They were a really decent raw live band. The OOTB tour with its nonsense stage and tapes ruined it.
"Raw" is the perfect word to describe the San Diego concert. And that rawness could have been preserved even with the advancing technology - it just required a certain discipline and recognition that not all technology maintains the human quality of rock n roll.
Undoubtedly. This is the last gasp of the band as a fully functioning live unit. The Big Night tour (which I saw in LA) was too much spectacle and not enough actual band. That version of Elanor Rigby is FANTASTIC. I wish we had it in better quality. But the arrangement is great, starting with a relatively faithful version and then taking it somewhere else wonderful at the end.
I beg to differ. I think it's great to have different eras of live performances. In my view, the OOTB spectacle was awesome. I love ELO as a raw live band, but I was also impressed by those gigantic studio-like performances of the "Alone In The Universe"- shows. It just proves that ELO is not a one trick pony.
I enjoyed the recent tours although unlikely to go again if there is another tour without a set list change. My point was more around the musical mess of the OOTB tour, it's been made pretty clear that the hamburger was an appalling stage to try to play in.
And perhaps it is that rawness which is the reason why Jeff will not allow any other soundboard recordings of ANWR or Time tours to be released. Assuming they exist. The San Diego fan recording, I hope, can be polished even more and then made available for all those fans that remember the version of ELO that Jeff would rather ignore. And I agree with @Michaelpeth - I flew to the UK for the 2017 Wembley show and that was a fun one time event. Great memory - to see Lynne on stage for the first time since 1981 was fantastic. And being in London was fun too. Then I went to the JLELO show in Washington, DC in 2019 (I think) and walked out halfway through it. It was too similar to Wembley. Just happy that I scalped / paid 30% of the $100 USD face value of the ticket.
The Wembley or Bust Genesis Publications book comes out next Tuesday, November 2, and we are giving away 10 books to YOU! Enter here: https://forms.sonymusicfans.com/.../elo-genesis-book.../ Contest ends on November 1. Good luck! https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=605303357327837
A reason why there's no Time 2 LP 40th Anniversary Legacy Edition?! Vinyl Is Selling So Well That It’s Getting Hard to Sell Vinyl Left for dead in the 1980s, vinyl records are now the music industry’s most popular and highest-grossing physical format. Getting them manufactured, however, is increasingly a challenge. Moose Adamson sets up the lathe at Joyful Noise Recordings in Indianapolis. The specialty label cuts records individually on a 1940s-vintage machine. By Ben Sisario Published Oct. 21, 2021 Updated Oct. 22, 2021 Within the Indianapolis office of Joyful Noise Recordings, a specialty label that caters to vinyl-loving fans of underground rock, is a corner that employees call the “lathe cave.” There sits a Presto 6N record lathe — a 1940s-vintage machine the size of a microwave that makes records by cutting a groove into a blank vinyl platter. Unlike most standard records, which are pressed by the hundreds or thousands, each lathe-cut disc must be created individually. “It’s incredibly laborious,” said Karl Hofstetter, the label’s founder. “If a song is three minutes long, it takes three minutes to make every one.” This ancient technology — scuffed and dinged, the lathe looks like something from a World War II submarine — is a key part of Joyful Noise’s strategy to survive the very surge of vinyl popularity the label has helped fuel. Left for dead with the advent of CDs in the 1980s, vinyl records are now the music industry’s most popular and highest-grossing physical format, with fans choosing it for collectibility, sound quality or simply the tactile experience of music in an age of digital ephemerality. After growing steadily for more than a decade, LP sales exploded during the pandemic. In the first six months of this year, 17 million vinyl records were sold in the United States, generating $467 million in retail revenue, nearly double the amount from the same period in 2020, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Sixteen million CDs were also sold in the first half of 2021, worth just $205 million. Physical recordings are now just a sliver of the overall music business — streaming is 84 percent of domestic revenue — but they can be a strong indication of fan loyalty, and stars like Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo make vinyl an important part of their marketing. Yet there are worrying signs that the vinyl bonanza has exceeded the industrial capacity needed to sustain it. Production logjams and a reliance on balky, decades-old pressing machines have led to what executives say are unprecedented delays. A couple of years ago, a new record could be turned around in a few months; now it can take up to a year, wreaking havoc on artists’ release plans. Kevin Morby, a singer-songwriter from Kansas City, Kan., said that his latest LP, “A Night at the Little Los Angeles,” barely arrived in time to sell on his fall tour. And he is one of the lucky ones. Artists from the Beach Boys to Tyler, the Creator have seen their vinyl held up recentl“It’s almost how I feel about playing live music,” Morby said in an interview. “I now count every show as a success. ‘Wow, we pulled it off — no one got Covid.’ Now I know what it’s like for the world to completely stop. So even if it’s going to be a little late I’m still grateful for that.” For Joyful Noise, the vinyl crunch has also presented a puzzling problem. Up to 500 V.I.P. customers pay the label $200 a year for special editions of every LP it makes. But the production holdups mean the label cannot predict which titles will be ready during 2022. “How do we in good conscience sell this for next year,” Hofstetter said, “if we don’t know when these records will show up?” The label’s solution is to make lathe-cut singles for each of the eight albums it intends to release next year, as placeholder bonuses while its customers wait. Doing so will cost Joyful Noise money and time — Hofstetter groaned as we calculated that eight records with five minutes of music per side, cut 500 times each, would take 666 hours of lathe work — but the label sees it as a necessary investment. Others are just as frustrated. Thrill Jockey, a Chicago label for indie-rock connoisseurs, wants to celebrate its 30th anniversary next year with a series of reissues, but its founder, Bettina Richards, said she has no idea which titles can be made in time. John Brien of Important Records, which releases work by contemporary composers, recently declared online that “vinyl is dead,” but clarified in an interview that the format is too essential to abandon. Not even the biggest stars are immune. In an interview this month with BBC Radio, Adele, whose album “30” is due Nov. 19 — and is sure to be a blockbuster on LP — said her release date had been set six months ago to get vinyl and CDs made in time. “There was like a 25-week lead time!” she exclaimed. “So many CD factories and vinyl factories, they bloody closed down even before Covid because no one bloody prints them anymore.” Music and manufacturing experts cite a variety of factors behind the holdup. The pandemic shut down many plants for a time, and problems in the global supply chain have slowed the movement of everything from cardboard and polyvinyl chloride — the “vinyl” that records (and plumbing pipes) are made from — to finished albums. In early 2020, a fire destroyed one of only two plants in the world that made lacquer discs, an essential part of the record-making process. Gold Rush Vinyl, a boutique plant in Austin, Texas. “That set us back a week. The limits of this infrastructure are being tested as major artists — and super-retailers like Walmart and Amazon — increasingly push vinyl. It is not hard to see why: At a time when CD sales are vanishing and streaming has left artists complaining about minuscule payouts, a new LP, especially if offered in eye-catching colors or in collector-baiting design variants, can sell for $25 or more. As some see it, releases by top pop acts are gumming up the production chain, crowding out the smaller artists and labels that have remained loyal to the format all along. “What worries me more than anything is that the major labels will dominate and take over all of the capacity, which I don’t think is a good idea,” said Rick Hashimoto of Record Technology Inc., a midsize plant in Camarillo, Calif., that works with many indie labels. Others say the big labels are just a convenient target. The real problem, they believe, isn’t celebrities jumping on the vinyl bandwagon but that the industrial network simply has not expanded quickly enough to meet growing demand. “Am I mad that Olivia Rodrigo sold 76,000 vinyl copies of her album?” said Ben Blackwell of Third Man, the record label and vinyl empire that counts Jack White of the White Stripes as one of its founders. “Not at all! This is what I would have dreamed of when we started Third Man — that the biggest frontline artists are all pushing vinyl, and that young kids are into it. Still, there are worries that the renaissance may be at risk if further delays frustrate consumers and artists — or if vinyl comes to be treated as just another merchandise item, like T-shirts or key chains, from which fickle fans will simply move on. Among old-school record types, there have long been suspicions that many new fans buy vinyl for a collectible thrill but never actually drop a needle. “We noticed during Covid that we got a lot more mail-order complaints like, ‘The jacket has a 10th-of-an-inch bend on the corner,’” said Brian Lowit of Dischord Records, the Washington label behind post-punk icons like Fugazi. “We ask them if the record is playing well and they’ll say, ‘I don’t know, I just keep it in the shrink wrap.’” For artists, especially ones without major-label backing, sticking with vinyl has now become a question about whether it is worth the trouble. “Right now vinyl feels legitimizing,” said Cassandra Jenkins, a singer-songwriter in Brooklyn whose last album, “An Overview on Phenomenal Nature,” was a surprise vinyl hit — it started with a pressing of 300 copies and eventually went to 7,000. “It’s an investment for an artist,” she added. “I want these objects that I can sell, so I am going to invest in that.” For some musicians like Jenkins, that investment has now begun to affect the creative process. After the release of her last album, in February, she began working on follow-up material. But the long turnaround time for vinyl meant she had to get started immediately, with a tight deadline, to get her music in the manufacturing pipeline. In Jenkins’s case, the pressure had a positive effect. She recorded an EP of new material, due by the end of the year on vinyl only. Another release, “(An Overview on) An Overview on Phenomenal Nature,” with outtakes and a new track, will come out on CD and digital formats next month — with vinyl to follow in April. “It oddly pushed me into making more music than I would have had we the more luxurious deadlines of yore,” Jenkins said. And her next project? “This year, it was really important to me to have vinyl,” she said. “Maybe next year it won’t be.”
Thank God for the Wayback Machine Face The Music Online Speaking of reminiscing https://www.eloalbums.co.uk/elo-japan-blu-spec-cd2 Eight I'd recommend to anyone wanting the 2021 ELO 50th Anniversary Japan BSCD2's second wave (1973-1986) with a nice Jet Records picture disc! On the Third Day Eldorado, A Symphony Face the Music A New World Record Out of the Blue Discovery Time Secret Messages* - 1 LP version from 2015 only, 2021=2018 2 LP that has Epic like 2019! Balance of Power is also Epic pic. I would forget about phase one!
ELO Beatles Forever: Spotlight: Face The Music Germany 50th Edition THURSDAY, 28 OCTOBER 2021 Spotlight: Face The Music Germany 50th Edition 1,627: My good friends Patrik Guttenbacher and Marc Haines over at Face The Music Germany have recently joined ELO in celebrating the 50th edition of their excellent magazine in tandem with the 50th anniversary of the Electric Light Orchestra. Although my German is at best basic, the fact filled, glossy copy of the FTM Germany #50 magazine that arrived at KJS/ELOBF HQ here in Wolverhampton last week instantly impressed with a front/back cover montage citing all former members of ELO as well as featuring a wonderful pictorial history of all the ELO spaceships, two in depth analyses of Paul McCartney's "Flaming Pie" Deluxe and Collectors Editions, an extensive overview of the press coverage for the Jeff Lynne's ELO most recent album "From Out Of Nowhere" and much more. "The most biggest, best, sexiest and magnificent magazine for fans of ELO" The professionalism of Face The Music Germany makes you wonder what Face The Music fanzine would look like today if it hadn't have gone online back in the day (causing some consternation amongst subscribers at the time) and had continued with its original remit of covering all things ELO & related as opposed to essentially becoming an extension of the Sony marketing regime. It's ironic that whilst Yours Truly KJS enthuses today over FTM Germany that ftmusic.com appears to have sadly gone offline at the time of writing. Visit Face The Music Germany for more info! ELO Beatles Forever (ELOBF) recommends Face The Music Germany to those enlightened folks who enjoy the music of ELO/Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood, The Move, 'Brum Beat', The Beatles and related artistes. Until next "Time" in the ELOBF Universe ... KJS ... 28-Oct-2021 POSTED BY KEITH J SINCLAIR AT 12:00 LABELS: @ELOBF_KJS, #ELO50, 50TH ANNIVERSARY, 50TH EDITION, ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA, ELO, ELOBEATLESFOREVER, ELOBF, FACE THE MUSIC GERMANY, JEFF LYNNE, MARC HAINES, PATRIK GUTTENBACHER
