It was one of those nights when even Jeff Lynne would have been happy to pay for a ticket.

After 15 years, Jeff called time on the Electric Light Orchestra in 1986. But his fellow symphonic rockers wanted to carry on, and the group has continued in different guises ever since.

On Thursday night they returned to the New Theatre in Oxford after a two-year absence, and a big crowd turned up to see the musicians, who are now forced to called themselves The Orchestra. For legal reasons, of course.

I'm delighted to report that the band was as tight as Jeff's perm in the old days.

They had dispensed with the stage show featuring a giant fibreglass spaceship, relying instead on the backdrop of a number of different videos.

But the lack of any elaborate stage set didn't matter because the hits sounded just as good as the studio versions, if not better.

New technology has enabled the orchestra to replicate those synth sounds very accurately, and the violin pyrotechnics provided by Mik Kaminsky were a real highlight.

All the big hits were played — Sweet Talking Woman, Mr Blue Sky, Horace Wimp, Hold on Tight and Last Train to London.

And the audience — ranging from teenage kids to their grandparents — was up on its feet for one of the last numbers Don't Bring Me Down.

Members of the Orchestra were keen to demonstrate their musical versatility by introducing one or two covers to the set, including Getting Better and Twist n' Shout by the Beatles.

But on the whole, they gave the ELO faithful what they wanted, and I would love to be singing Telephone Line with them when they are next in town.