The John Griff Column: When looking back is a great way to move forward
On Saturday Lois and I took a trip down memory lane – along with about eight hundred others who’d also paid the £30 price to be taken back to the era of our youth. For a night we revelled again in the music of our teenage years – OUR music.
Leaving the Derngate auditorium I think there might have been a mixture of emotions in the night air – reflective and affirmative too. Why?
The occasion was the for-one-night-only performance of a tribute band, celebrating the music of the Electric Light Orchestra. A stalwart of the British music industry from the early 70s to the mid-80s, the original band still exists albeit that it now has just one member – co-founder Jeff Lynne. Lynne will tour for the last time under the ELO name in July this year, with a last hurrah for five nights in Birmingham, Manchester and London, after which ‘Jeff Lynn’s ELO’ will bring the trademark multicoloured spacecraft in for a final landing. From then on, only the tribute acts will keep the music alive for an ageing and probably dwindling army of fans.
It is perhaps quite a depressing outlook, especially if, like me, you lit up to the sounds of Across the Border, Mr Blue Sky and Turn To Stone and more. I was too young to witness ELO’s debut – ‘10538 Overture’ heralded a rock band majoring on classical instruments and breaking new ground in the process. Originally a Roy Wood concept, ELO won both hearts, minds and pockets. By 1986 it had shifted over 50 million albums, singles and tours. It created a fortune for Lynne as the band’s composer, lyricist and producer too - not bad for a front man who built a reputation for barely talking to the audience between songs, preferring to let the music do the work – which it clearly did.
Inside Derngate on Sunday night, ‘our’ Jeff Lynne was a man called Brian in a wig, false beard, moustache and Aviator sunglasses. He fronted up with the kind of patter which might have made the real Lynne cringe - we didn’t mind at all. Instead, eight musicians faithfully reproduced the songs which transported us as effortlessly as the now inflatable spacecraft might have done back in the day when it was rather larger, made of aluminium stage trusses, animated by hydraulics and contained a fully flown lighting rig. ‘Our’ ELO had clearly played the songs a million times before, but from Brian’s demeanour you could tell that this was more than a commercial exercise in nostalgia for the faithful. Look at The ELO Show website and you’ll rapidly come to appreciate the backbone of professional classical/rock/progrock playing on which the end result is based, complemented by a full laser and light show which filled Derngate’s stage. Without a support act, the show ran for a full two and a half hours – and even then, really only scratched the surface of ELO’ back catalogue.
Sometimes tribute acts come up as well-intentioned but pale imitations of the original. With technical innovation, standards have gone up, allowing the better performances to cut through the wider morass of mediocrity – this was one of those nights. In truth, it was, for me all about the music, albeit that the visuals made the experience more immersive. It made for a powerful night’s entertainment – which is what we wanted to experience. We roared as we did, as did the gentleman in the second row of the stalls who got up to rock out in front of me. Probably in his mid-80s, he delivered a masterclass in exuberance. Bravo, sir.
That’s where the reflection came in. Many in the audience were probably closer to the end than the start of their lives, including me. It’s fine - if you’re lucky, you get a chance to look back with your faculties intact. Music is a vital component, emotionally piloting taking you back to youthful times. What you find there depends on how you’ve lived your life, but music doesn’t age - it can be recreated as accurately as the day it was first created. God forbid that AI should do away with live performance.
And the affirmation? That came as we reached the car outside. Prolonging the night, I turned on and played on the car’s sound system some of the music we’d just consumed - loudly. Propelled by a headful of tunes and rhythms, I turned for home feeling grounded, renewed in my own skin and optimistic for the future. To quote Jeff Lynne:
Hey you with the pretty face - welcome to the human race
A celebration, Mr. Blue Sky's up there waitin' - and today’s the day we've waited for…
That’ll do.