DEVASTATING NEWS: about 20 min ago, Jeff Lynne was been rushed to the hospital for a deadly illness which is…
Jeff Lynne‘s Electric Light Orchestra are going to call it quits after one final run they’re dubbing The Over and Out Tour. The 27-date tour kicks off Aug, 24 in Palm Desert, California, and wraps up Oct, 25 in Los Angeles, California, though it’s possible they’ll add additional legs before it ends. Ticket sales begin March 22.
The original incarnation of Electric Light Orchestra ran from 1970 to 1986, landing timeless hits on the charts like “Mr. Blue Sky,” “Evil Woman,” “Strange Magic,” “Don’t Bring Me Down,” and “Turn to Stone.” When frontman Jeff Lynne dissolved the group to produce other artists, including George Harrison and Tom Petty, ELO drummer Bev Bevan carried on with new musicians under the moniker ELO Part II, creating bitterness between the two camps that lasts to this day.
Lynne resurrected Electric Light Orchestra in 2001, but he only invited original keyboardist Richard Tandy back into the fold. Their new LP Zoom was a commercial disappointment, and an arena tour was canceled due to poor ticket sales. In the summer of 2014, Lynne and Tandy brought the group back to life under the new name Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra for a massive outdoor concert in London’s Hyde Park.
“I had all these negative thoughts before agreeing to play Hyde Park,” Lynne told Rolling Stone in 2016, “but the crowd just went bananas all the way through. They loved every minute of it. It was the best show I’d ever been involved with up until that point.”
The reaction to the show inspired Lynne to bring ELO back on the road for a series of successful arena tours between 2015 and 2019. They recorded the new albums Alone in the Universe in 2015 and From Out of Nowhere in 2019, though Tandy missed the last few tours for reasons that have never been explained. A 2020 tour was canceled due to Covid. The group’s first show since 2019 took place Nov. 12, 2023, at Joe Walsh’s VetsAid concert in Chula Vista, California.
