True story this. During the 90s, one of the bands I play with were resident at the Dee St. Club. One of the acts that played there over the years was a brilliant club comedian called Roger 'Ollie' Spencer. Ollie had been the drummer with one of Jeff Lynne's formative bands 'The Idle Race' (check them out - you can hear a lot of the prototype ELO stuff there). In fact, Lynne had left the Idle Race to join Roy Wood and Bev Bevan in 'The Move'. Ollie Spencer was still in touch with Jeff Lynne, and I kid you not Jeff Lynne rang Ollie Spencer whilst we stood having a chat in the changing cupboard. This was just to check that Ollie was free the following week for the Birmingham City home game and a curry plus few beers afterwards. I said that I thought Jeff Lynne lived in LA as a non dom! Apparently, Lynne had worked it out to the finest detail how he could get in as many Birmingham City home and away games plus the curry nights as he could within the 90 days allowance leaving some days for 'work' or meetings. He actually planned his visits back to the UK around the games. According to Ollie, Lynne really missed the football and Birmingham curry houses. However, that night Lynne had rang to say that he'd be over for a quite bit as he was working with a few mates on a new record. The 'few mates' turned out to be the surviving Beatles!
