The album Jeff Lynne thought was impossible to tour: “A proper pain in the arse”
Not every musician arrives on the scene when they are supposed to. Just ask every nostalgia act of the past 30 years that has tried to play down dirty rock and roll, and they will be happy to tell you that they should have made their impact in the era of Led Zeppelin instead of the alternative revolution. But it’s more than just the style. Sometimes, it’s about the physical medium, and when Jeff Lynne started putting together Out of the Blue, he thought that any tour would be impossible to pull off.
Granted, it’s not like Electric Light Orchestra wasn’t a compelling live band in their prime. Despite what seems nowadays to be permanent sunglasses stapled to their heads, Lynne’s band of merry musicians has been putting that kind of classical sophistication into their sound ever since their reunion and rebranding as Jeff Lynne’s ELO in the 2010s.
At the time, though, no one could have predicted where Lynne was headed onstage. There had been eye-catching visuals before, but having a cellist play the kind of riffs that seemed reserved for Jimi Hendrix didn’t make that much sense. While it hardly mattered as long as the music was good, Out of the Blue is the moment they took a quantum leap.
There had already been rumblings about making a double live record to compete with Frampton Comes Alive!, but by going back into the studio for a double album, Lynne crafted orchestral movements that felt like a mini-symphony on vinyl. People could have picked up on influences from Beethoven here and there, but songs like ‘Mr Blue Sky’ were becoming far too big to justify as a live piece, especially with the massive orchestra that would surely have to be paid every night.
The fat royalty checks from the album might not have hurt, but Lynne claimed that the accompanying tour for Out of the Blue is something he never wants to do again, recalling to Uncut, “Touring the album was impossible, though, a proper pain in the arse, and I started to get fed up with all the strings: ‘Argh, fuckin’ hell, not another string session today…’ It became a bit of a formula. I made a lot of electronic records after Out Of The Blue.”
That’s not to say that Lynne didn’t still make quality music when he returned from the road, either. Yes, there were more electronic records to be found, but if it still meant getting hits like ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ out of the deal, the rock audience was still getting more than their fair share of thrills out of him.
But this is also the time when Lynne started to get much more comfortable in front of a mixing board than he was on the road. The touring life isn’t meant for everyone, and once he started working alongside The Traveling Wilburys and George Harrison, he had found his calling creating a perfect vocal harmony or doing technical innovations no one could have thought of.
In that respect, Lynne did, in fact, follow in the lead of his idols, The Beatles, yet again. There had already been musical comparisons, but just like the Fab Four outgrew their time on the road, Lynne got to the point where he had to become a studio-only act almost out of necessity. Because if you think about it, who really wants to hear ‘Mr Blue Sky’ live if no one has the technology to pull it off?
