Steve Hochman on September 10th, 2016

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It didn’t take long. The lights weren’t even up on stage yet, in fact, when the possibilities presented by pairing Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra — the Electric Light Orchestra Orchestra, if you will — at, well, the Hollywood Bowl on Friday. It was clear before the ELO portion of the massed personnel fully kicked into gear, as the HBO, under the deft baton of its principal conductor Thomas Wilkins, launched into the lush flourish that opens the 40-year-old ELO song “Tightrope,” a sort of Beethoven-Tchaikovsky-Prokofiev mashup.

There were plenty of lights around the stage, mind you, a screen behind the musicians, the arch over them, the pillars holding video screens and the concentric semi-circles that scribe the Bowl’s signature shell hosted an overload of op-art patterns and strobing flashes. But then, slowly, one light did appear on stage, coning down around Mr. Lynne himself, as the classical prelude exploded into the song’s classical, and now-classic, rock. Yeah, it was showy razzle-dazzle, but dazzling nonetheless, which is pretty much the essence of the best of ELO, and much of the reason its pleasures have held true through the decades, including the last three decades in which there was, for all intents, no full touring ELO.

From that opening flourish to the closing fireworks (to the tune of the ELO+O’d “Roll Over Beethoven,” Lynne throwing musical sparks from his black Les Paul playing the Chuck Berry licks, and clearly having a blast) on this first of three nights closing the Bowl’s 2016 seasons, the pleasures were copious. “Evil Woman,” “All Over the World,” “Living Thing” with its gypsy violin passages … It seemed that with every song someone nearby was turning to a neighbor and saying, “Oooh! That’s my favorite!” Sure, nostalgia was an essential component to the show — even the newest song, “When I Was a Boy” from last year’s “Alone in the Universe” album, is Lynne wistfully revisiting his Birmingham, England, childhood when he fell in love with music.

A few songs stood out far beyond the nostalgia, though, particularly the mid-show pairing of “10538 Overture” and “Can’t Get It Out of My Head.” The former, the first song on the first ELO album, when Roy Wood was still in the group and it was basically a spin-off from the ’60s English outfit the Move, was basically the template for the entire ELO catalog and it’s signature devotion to the Three B’s — Beethoven, Beatles and Berry, and a fourth with some Beach Boys harmonies.

The dreamily romantic latter was further enhanced by rainbow lasers projected through smoke billowing through the audience for a 3D effect echoed by the orchestral swells and swoops and the tight, complex vocal harmonies of the song’s chorus, flawlessly performed. As with many of the night’s peaks, the orchestra was a distinct presence, a complement and not merely an extension of the already-symphonic arrangements of ELO, which after all has its own self-contained strings section of two cellos and a violin.

The orchestra’s role alone greatly expanded the presentation from the preview treat we saw last November when the just-revived ELO played the Fonda Theater here. The extra-rich sonics compensated for the lost intimacy of that theater concert, though the light-show didn’t hurt in that regard either.

The band itself is essentially the same, Lynne and fellow lifer pianist Richard Tandy joined by a cast that expertly and expressively recreates the original recordings’ sounds. Yeah, it was pretty much note for note, but full of life, never bloodless, which is the trick. And speaking of blood, Lynne’s daughter Laura joining the background singers for a few songs was a nice bonus touch — the first time she had sung with them, proud papa announced.

Truth be told, the outline of the evening was clear before ELO appeared, as the orchestra opened the evening on its own. They went straight from “The Star Spangled Banner,” the traditional orchestra opener here (no one, as far as we could tell, sitting or taking a knee in protest) to a sequence of turn-of-the-20th-century English classical pieces from composers Malcolm Arnold, Ralph Vaughn Williams and Edward Elgar, a transatlantic juxtaposition to match that of ELO’s dovetail joint of Euro orchestral sounds with American rock ’n’ roll.

And of course, no where in the ELO catalog is that juxtaposition more explicit than the “Roll Over Beethoven” adaptation, with the monumental main theme from Ludwig’s 5th framing the needling Berry retort. With fireworks rocketing skyward from the Bowl arch, Lynne stood center stage, shooting his own musical sparks playing the giddy Berry licks on his black Les Paul, clearly having a blast himself. If that ain’t classical music, what is?

||| Live: Jeff Lynne’s ELO and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra reprise their show tonight and Sunday.