Sunday, August 12, 2012

... AND AGAIN...

Mr. Blue Sky featured in both the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

The re-recorded version of Mr. Blue Sky just set up Eric Idle's grand entrance - from a cannon.  He then broke into Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.  Fantastic.

Some reaction from the Twitter-verse:

10 comments:

Jerry said...

However, Mr. Blue Sky NOT included in iTunes 'Symphony of British Music' soundtrack from the closing ceremony that is now available to buy.

Anonymous said...

Makes me wonder if his new albums will be available on itunes. Has that been announced?

Jerry said...

Now would be a great time to unleash the new Mr. Blue Sky track...

Anonymous said...

Such a shame that Jeff Lynne did not make it to either the Olympic opening or closing ceremony, though Mr Blue Sky was played twice. Could have been a great way to say "I am back". Now I would love to hear some samples from Long Wave and Mr Blue Sky (the album)

Jerry said...

There should be something right on the front page of elo.biz TODAY that says "here's the song you heard at the Olympic closing ceremonies..." while it's fresh in everyone's minds. But nothing. They could be capitalizing on this great moment with a release less than two months out, but that web site hasn't budged an inch since it launched.

rob10538 said...

Each seat in the stadium had a paddle with 9 high powered lights. There were 70,500 paddles creating a giant screen. When Mr. Blue Sky played it was entirely blue except for intermittent clouds...what a moment...

Anonymous said...

Jerry - it is all very disappointing. It is as if Jeff's management are deliberately incompetent. "How can we best make a balls of this?" Mr Blue Sky was used twice. Why was Jeff not there? I bet if Bev Bevan was still part of ELO or ELO Part 2 he would have been there playing live! It is quite bizarre that an artist who has been planning his comeback since 2009 has not seen fit to capitalise in some way on his music being used in such a high profile event. His song even fed into Eric Idle which was on of the most high profile parts of the entire closing ceremony (at least for the English speaking world). One despairs.

Jerry said...

I didn't mind it being a recording so much, but this is about as high profile as a song is going to get, a literal worldwide audience.

If the object is to sell as many as downloads/CD/etc as possible - and you knew about this ahead of time - and it's less than two months from its actual release - why is this song not available to buy right now?

I got an e-mail from the UK this morning to tell me that Mr. Blue Sky is back in the iTunes chart, obviously because of the Olympics ceremonies.

And a golden opportunity slips as times goes on...

md said...

Jerry - the recording element doesn't matter that much, though ELO are still a very faceless band. The lack of availability to download is ridiculous. Sigh.

Jerry said...

For those in the USA:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/2012/closing-ceremony-musical-performances.html

Starts around the 57:00 min mark...