Electric Light Orchestra – The BBC Sessions, Volume One Review

Early performances from Electric Light Orchestra after parting ways with Roy Wood are hard to come by. The band has released few live performances in their historied career, and the ones which did release are lacklustre at best. The Night the Light Went on in Long Beach is as mediocre as it gets while Live at Wembley is so far removed from the historied times of these career-best achievements it feels like a stale nostalgia pop. We must turn to unofficial bootlegs, then, and The BBC Sessions: Volume One, is one such example of why ripped tapes and recorded snippets in time are so important. A whining instrumental is not the greatest of starts, but stick with this volume. Live performances from this time are rare, rarer still was a solidity to their stage performances. Instead, they would lip-sync their way through or send in tapes.  

Fair enough. It makes no difference to From the Sun to the World, a relatively loose and ultimately jagged instrumental clipping which precedes ELO 2 rip, Kuiama. As The BBC Sessions: Volume One rolls on, it becomes all the clearer that the timeline pieced together by the five years of these performances is well worth following. By the end, with Telephone Line and Rockaria closing the compilation, there is a euphoria which would carry Jeff Lynne and the band into light, progressive rock nirvana. Early bits and pieces are welcome enough but the turn of form is a cover of Chuck Berry. Roll Over Beethoven is a rocking track, though the terminology may be dated, so too is a cover of Berry. Lynne carries this, a solid voice in his prime and an unforgettable instrumental flourish to it. This, along with Can’t Get It Out of My Head are raw and fantastic live examples of Lynne and the band.  

All of this is because compilation masters are the stuff of dreams. They will whittle down the hours of material and find those brilliant, shining gems. Crisp recording quality, solid workings from the band and hearing their evolution from track to track on The BBC Sessions: Volume One, is a treat. A New World Record is given a look-in too, more because there is a sincere lack of quality outings of their earliest works from this period. Exceptional performances of Livin’ Thing and Do Ya are volatile beasts, fantastic renditions of some of their best bits. But it does not stop there and the hallmarks of what makes Lynne a light-hearted thrill of a frontman are heard. From the heaviness of the instrumentals on Livin’ Thing to the bouncing, ever-present thrill found in these later tracks.  

The BBC Sessions: Volume One is an exceptional collection of songs which, more than anything, paint a picture of ELO as a live act. Their steady but coy early years are pushed into a bolder position, a sense of needing a bit of a background drop behind them, a nod towards the bigger production which would not always lend itself to plausible plans. The Zoom tour remains an unfortunate blip – just think what could have been done for it when Lynne and the gang were at this instrumentally sound momentum. They remained there for decades, even when they reformed, however briefly. The BBC Sessions: Volume One is an exceptional highlight of this. Rockaria as a closer is perfect, a band reeling from a departing frontman to a step-up from a legendary performer in the making is marvellous.