Never worry about going to a tribute band – if you love the music then at least it’ll be an enjoyable night, and if the band are really good then it’s going to be an excellent night the next best thing to the band you will probably never get to see!
And this was the case with the ELO Experience – it was a brilliant night.
I’ve always loved ELO. It was in my household when I was growing up and I remember the vinyl’s and album covers so I was pretty happy to be going to see ELO Experience.
The auditorium was packed with people of a certain age with a sprinkling of younger enthusiasts, the anticipation was high. We wanted excellence. We wanted that ELO Experience.
Lights down and the band are straight in with ‘All Over The World’ and we were double clapping in the right places! The first song ticked all the boxes – it was a good start.
Andy Louis, lead singer & guitarist, had a little chat with us, which he did between many of the songs, explaining that he’s been doing this for 18 years and as long as people are enjoying it, him and the band will continue. Andy was humble, almost thankful that he was up on the stage and his only remit was to have an evening of recreating the hits from ELO for everyone to enjoy. I appreciated his humbleness, there was no ego trying to be Jeff Lynne, it really was about immersing ourselves in the music to bring back memories.
There is no doubt Jeff Lynne was super talented and to pick which songs to recreate for under 2 hours was a tough call. But they were all there.
We diligently raised our hands and clapped and sung the words when Andy made the obvious request, however as the night went on we didn’t need any prompting and many of us were just singing away, without a care as to how loud we were.
Alongside Andy was Pete Smith on bass guitar, although this was his penultimate gig with the band, Chris Marsh on keyboards and special effects which were all there exactly how we wanted them, Tony Lawson on drums and Jan Christiansen on lead guitar. As a band they were all super talented and it was a perfect recreation of all the songs along with the backing vocals we expect.
Of course there was the essential string section, comprised of two cello players (Francesca McDonald and Rachel Hoffman) who were spinning their cellos during ‘ ‘Rock ‘n Roll is King’. The fabulous violinist Liz Stacey, who did everything we wanted her to with an abundance of glamour and grace and sung on ‘Rockaria’.
A big screen at the back showed a few graphics without being too distracting, however they did show the Lego stop motion video by Icewalker of DallArt for The Diary of Horace Wimp which was fun to see.
The ELO Experience managed to pack in a lot of songs, including: Evil Woman, Telephone Line, Can’t Get It Out of My Head, Showdown, Confusion, Last Train to London, Wild West Hero, Xanadu, Sweet Talkin’ Woman, Livin’ Thing, Don’t Bring Me Down…..and more.
They added a bit of fun in the second half with the audience having glowsticks and waving them about and we were all up dancing for the encore which of course included ‘Mr Blue Sky’ as we had yet to hear it.
It was a wonderful night with an incredible band playing fantastic music. I certainly won’t shy away from tribute bands in the future as I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Click here for more info & tour dates and click here for show photos (which I have used)