Jeff Lynne’s ELO live in Amsterdam

Last night Mr Esther and I went to see ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) perform live in Amsterdam at the Ziggo Dome concert hall. Actually, it was Jeff Lynne’s ELO, as the original ELO are not together anymore. This was before the concert started…

The warm up act was a singer called Billy Lockett. He had a great voice, the music was nice and he was just cute in his interaction with the audience. The hall was three-quarters full, I think, when he sang and he seemed pleased with the reception.  Said he thought that there were more people there than he has followers on Twitter, which may be a fair point. 🙂

We all came to see ELO, however, and boy, did they deliver! Mr Esther (along with a friend) had seen Alan Parsons live a few months ago and had been disappointed in the Parsons voice. He hoped Jeff Lynne would be better and Lynne certainly was! His voice is still great and he had great backing singers as well. The band was good and there were violins and a cello, which gave a beautiful richness of sound. Add to that the beautiful background graphics and the light and laser show and it certainly was one heck on an evening! Here are some picture impressions (click on images to enlarge)…

The only down side was that there were seats also in the field (where we were). We wondered why there would be seats but figured maybe it had to do with the average age of the audience being a bit older than our age. When you want to dance and clap besides sing along, it’s hard to stay in your seat, especially as most of the concert was upbeat. It’s also annoying when people complain when you jump up and stay up for a while. However, that didn’t stop us from dancing in our seats (and waving with our hands and clapping and singing along and woohoo-ing). Finally, the last 20 minutes or so, people couldn’t stay in their seats any longer and when Don’t Bring Me Down started playing, everyone got up on their feet and stayed there till the end of the concert. Here, a clip I found on YouTube from last night of Jeff Lynne’s ELO singing that song…

One of my fave songs of theirs is Mr. Blue Sky…

… but really, all the numbers they performed were great (check out last night’s setlist here). I could share many more clips that I found on YouTube from last night, but I won’t bore you with them all here. If you’re curious just type in “elo ziggo dome 2018” in YouTube search and you’ll find loads of clips there. 🙂

Mr Esther got a concert t-shirt with the ELO spaceship on it…

… and we left the concert very happy and wishing it had been longer than the 90 minutes or so that it was. Should they play anywhere near you (and you like their music), go see them live, it’s totally worth it.