He says this is his last time out on tour as ELO, so I wanted to catch it; I was not disappointed. He did miss the start to a song or two, and he fumbled a tiny bit here and there, but damn did he do well for almost 80. It was kind of touching that he took lead by himself on everything too. I got to say, it was every bit as engaging and energetic as the albums ever were to me, and I felt moved by seeing him up there on stage, still keeping it going. The rendition of "Can't Get it Out of my Head" was of particular note.
There was a certain poignancy to seeing Jeff do this for once last time, as though it was nearing the time when the memories of "Telephone Line" would finally be set adrift.
Started me down a bit of rabbit hole of early Lynne and Wood compositions. I already had all the ELO stuff, Jeff Lynne's Idle Race and most of the Move albums, but I dug deeper.
It makes me wonder what could have been if Lynne and Wood had been able to put aside whatever happened during the creation of ELO and work together again. As the story goes, Wood created ELO and brought Lynne on board, only to be alienated by Lynne's desire to pursue a more mainstream sound and Wood's erratic behavior on stage. Wood went on to have a number of singles in the UK during the few years after his departure from ELO, but quickly sank into obscurity as ELO's fortunes turned a corner and soared. There were about 5-6 songs of Wood's that charted in that in-between time, the most successful was "See My Baby Jive," which is here played live on TOTP, but then overdubbed by the poster.
When I listen to Wood's later output, it strikes me as sad that he never again found a platform to support his mad, wild performance art, and he and Lynne never really could reconcile musically. They did record some material together at the end of the 80s, but it was scrapped and never released. At least they stayed friends, and who knows, maybe now that ELO is over, Lynne, Wood and Bev Bevans might do a weird little Move tour.
Looked up some Axelay jams and 
I don't really have the heart to savage it though, The Cure is too much a part of my youth, feels like kicking grandpa or something.
