THE NIGHT THE LIGHT WENT ON IN LONG BEACH

Originally only released on LP in some countries on which the band still had not played concerts then (in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and in Continetal Europe in France, Netherlands and Germany, as the booklet notes of the 1998 CD version say) in August 1974, this live album was recorded in 12- May- 1974 at Long Beach Auditorium in California. It was remastered and released on CD in 1998 in the UK. Despite the remastering, the recording and the mixing of this album are not very good, but not too bad. This live album was recorded during the time the band was recording their "Eldorado" album, so maybe that is the reason this live album doesn`t have any songs from that album. But it has one song from their first album ("10538 Overture"), one from their second album ("Roll Over Beethoven") and two from their third album ("Daybreaker" and Grieg`s "In the Hall of the Mountain King"), plus "Showdown" (which was previously released as a single and later also included in later pressings of their thid album in the U.K.), and three previously unreleased tracks (The Beatles` "Day Tripper"), a violin solo played along with the band ("Mik`s solo / Orange Blossom Special") and "Great Balls of Fire", which I think that it was originally recorded by Rock and Roller Jerry Lee Lewis.There is also a brief instrumental fragment of "Do Ya" (a song which Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan recorded with The Move in 1972 but they later re-recorded it with ELO in 1976) included at the end of "10538 Overture".The band shows very well, really sounding like having a lot of fun despite not having enough time for a sound check as their equipment arrived very late to the venue before the concert due to some problems. Anyway, the arrangements are very good, particularly for "Day Tripper", with very good keyboards by Richard Tandy. Maybe this album could have been better if it was released with less covers of songs and with more original songs. Maybe at the time of release of this album Jeff Lynne wasn`t very happy with the live recordings of the band. But maybe it could have been better to re-issue the album in the CD format as a double album with more tracks recorded at that concert or at others from the same period of time. As a one CD album it really sounds as a very short in time duration live album, but it is very enjoyable anyway.