Guys, I'm stuck in ELO hell online.

[ian]

how do you guys get out of ELO hell?

I checked, and there's simply no local gigs for the final Electric Light Orchestra tour...

It saddens me that I won't get to see it, and that people in Australia will never learn how Jeff Lynne achieves anti aging perfection.

I've asked a bunch of people who've seen him live if he revealed to them how he looks better in 2024 than he did in 1971 but none of them are willing to share the secret with people who haven't met him.

Tell us your secret Jeff Lynne... sure, you'll put every make-up company and cosmetic surgeon in the entire world out of business overnight, but the world will be a much better place.

Or maybe he's putting us in ELO hell so that once the music is silenced forever we can all still at least look good for decades.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

His aging secret: dyes his hair + beard and wears sunglasses to hide the wrinkles. Probably botox as well. Bang!

[ian]

So there we go, the secret to looking young forever is sunglasses and a beard!

[pixel]

This will be sacrilege, but I saw him in 2019 and it was fine. Not the greatest show ever, but not the worst—perfectly cromulent. We had a surge of aging acts come through the area in the past decade and I'd rank them:

Top Tier
1. Billy Joel
Genuinely entertaining, still puts on a great show. Not great if you hate his music, however. Probably the most polarizing artist on the list.
2. Heart
They killed it, awesome show.
3. Garth Brooks
Several people I know saw him multiple times, the highest energy show on the list. (He's 20 years younger than the competition)

Great Tier
4. Paul McCartney
Played perfectly, although wasn't really engaging.
5. Bob Seger
Still got it, ranked lower because he isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Good Tier
6. Jeff Lynne's ELO
Jeff was definitely there performing. Production was fine, felt more like karaoke or a stage show than an actual concert. Could've been impacted by the St. Paul Xcel Energy Center's bad acoustics.
7. Eagles
I don't remember this show. Glenn Fry was still alive, so that's nice.

Bad Tier
8. Elton John
He doesn't need to be barnstorming through South Dakota for money. Sang everything in a low octave, I fell asleep during a medley. (I had been drinking before the show)
9. Barry Manilow
These tickets were free through work. He actively hates Copacabana, looked pissed off by inconveniencing himself to sing his best song.

Truly Awful
10. I Love The 90s Tour
Tone Loc kicked off the night by collapsing on stage. The roadies came out and dragged him off the stage. The DJ yelled at everyone for booing. Color Me Badd were as terrible as their name implies. They made me feel incredibly depressed that they had to perform so poorly each night in a cross-country tour. All-4-One killed it, easily could've just played the full show and sang everyone else's music. Kid-n-Play were good. Tone Loc was revived and came back to the stage for an impromptu encore of Wild Thing. Vanilla Ice ended the show, doing his best ICP impression. There were big inflatable creatures on stage and the roadies were performing pyrotechnics with lighters and aerosol cans while hiding behind the risers.

As we drove home, we followed another concert goer as they drove home drunk with his girlfriend. They got into a domestic assault at the gas station by our townhome and drove off before the police arrived.

[ian]

This will be sacrilege

9. Barry Manilow
These tickets were free through work. He actively hates Copacabana, looked pissed off by inconveniencing himself to sing his best song.

I should say it's sacrilege! Barry Manilow's best song is Who's Been Sleeping In My Bed.

Everything else you said seems right. But tone loc collapsing is a good thing, because it means you hear less of tone loc!

You mentioned ELO might have been bad due to accoustics at the venue?
We have a venue like that here in Melbourne. If your St. Paul Xcel Energy Center is like Festival Hall, ELO could have been the best performance you'd ever seen if they were in a boggy field with no electricity or instruments instead.

Festival hall is the worst fucking venue in the entire world and could (AND HAS) suck the life out of anyone.
If you've ever wanted to listen to music in a tin can while underwater in a tiled bathroom in a cave, then festival hall is the perfect venue.

I actively avoided seeing NOFX on their final tour because they chose festival hall, and even if the venue has been completely remade since the last time I was there, I am sure it's still cursed from the old days of sounding that bad. Like it's built on an ancient Indian burial ground of terrible sound.

Festival hall is So bad that if Roy Orbison came back from the dead, half the Beatles came back from the dead and reformed, Daft Punk reformed and Bad Religion played all of Stranger than fiction with their 90's lineup AND Yello played their first Australian show all at the one gig at festival hall, I would not go to see it... Yes, the place is that bad!
It's owned by a church these days, so it's good because you can't really ruin religious music or services so festival hall might actually be good for something for the first time by turning people away and having it so people can barely hear what Hillsong services actually say. But if your energy center isn't as bad as festival hall, it might have been age affecting how good ELO was.

It's interesting you say Elton John was bad, I was questioning whether I wanted to see him on the last tour but decided against it. I usually prefer the studio to live shows but from the feedback over the years... I don't think I've ever heard people so divided over a performer. Half the people I talk to say he's the best show they've ever been to, and half say they felt they wasted their money. I saw a tribute act, and that was pretty good, and didn't cost a million dollars.

[pixel]

This will be sacrilege

It's interesting you say Elton John was bad, I was questioning whether I wanted to see him on the last tour but decided against it. I usually prefer the studio to live shows but from the feedback over the years... I don't think I've ever heard people so divided over a performer. Half the people I talk to say he's the best show they've ever been to, and half say they felt they wasted their money. I saw a tribute act, and that was pretty good, and didn't cost a million dollars.

Even if he can't sing like he used to, it's still cool to see him live. It's all about balancing fandom, the performance and the venue. Diehard Elton John fans were really happy to see him one last time and would've paid just to watch him read a magazine. But the objective truth is that he can't sing like he used and it was very obvious. The production wasn't too bad but the medley of B-side hits was so boring. Manilow had the same problem too but he can still sing really well.

I also saw Billy Joel at the Xcel in about the same section. The place is a barn like the Festival Hall, only bigger (13k seats vs. 5k). Granted, I saw both shows in the absolute nosebleeds but Billy's production felt so much better than ELO. The biggest difference between the two? Billy is really personable and takes a few breaks during the show to talk and get audience voting on the next song. My apologies to Jeff Lynne but it seemed like he just got unthawed from the cryo chamber. One minor thing that really bugged me: he announced the tour manager on the stage and that guy introduced the band while Jeff shuffled off the stage.

[ian]

At Lynne's age, you can't blame him for shuffling off stage.
He may have looked like spry 45 year old for the past 50 years, but he's well into his 70's.

If I had the chance I would see ELO and avoid ELO hell.
Of a similar age to Lynne but not looking quite as young are Mark Knopfler and John Fogerty, from what I've seen (sadly all online which isn't the same) they can still rock if they have to, despite the age.

I was nearly prepared to go up the entire height of the country to see Fogerty this year, but the music festival for some reason just dropped him from the lineup. The music festival is seriously just about dead in Upside down land, and taking off the only act I would have ever possibly considered going to country fest Queensland for doesn't help.

I don't like my odds of ever seeing Knopfler live, but like 5 years ago, even though he moved like a 98 year old, he still slayed the guitar and was a pretty consistent singer.
But Fogerty, he can still wail like a man in his 30's.