The Boomer REport - Music Fun Facts

ELO - The Electric Light Orchestra

10 Fun Facts

  1. They were created to “pick up where The Beatles left off” – ELO was conceived by Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood as a continuation of The Beatles’ orchestral experiments on Sgt. Pepper and I Am the Walrus.
  2. Jeff Lynne played nearly every instrument on later albums – As the band evolved, Lynne increasingly took control, producing, writing, and playing most of the parts himself, especially on Time and Secret Messages.
  3. Their name confused people – In the U.S., early promo materials listed them as “The Electric Light Orchestra,” but in the UK, they were just “ELO.”
  4. They were originally part of another band – ELO formed out of The Move, a psychedelic pop group led by Roy Wood. Wood left ELO after the first album, leaving Lynne in charge.
  5. They toured with their own massive spaceship – For their 1978 Out of the Blue tour, ELO had a giant, glowing futuristic spaceship stage, costing over $300,000.
  6. They were one of the first to use lasers in live shows – Their concerts in the late ’70s featured synchronized laser light shows, a cutting-edge effect at the time.
  7. “Mr. Blue Sky” was nearly lost – The tape of the full Out of the Blue album was left on a plane and went missing. It was later found in an airline lost and found.
  8. They were sometimes dismissed by critics as “cheesy” – Despite their popularity, many early reviews mocked their orchestral pop-rock as “overproduced.” Today, critics have largely re-evaluated them as visionary.
  9. They influenced Daft Punk and The Flaming Lips – Their fusion of analog instrumentation with synthesizers helped shape the sound of future psych-pop and electro-rock.
  10. Jeff Lynne continues to tour as “Jeff Lynne’s ELO” – The rebooted version, launched in 2014, has sold out arenas worldwide and introduced a whole new generation to the ELO sound.