Jeff Lynne said he was surprised to find himself touring with Electric Light Orchestra once again, and to be enjoying the experience.

He just released latest Jeff Lynne’s ELO album From Out of Nowhere, having completed his most recent road trip in June. You can listen to the LP in full below:

“I don’t know what happened,” Lynne told Variety about his touring commitments. “I just got talked into it by somebody on the radio [in 2013] – it was for charity, and we only had two numbers. That’s all we practiced for, so we had to do ‘Mr. Blue Sky’ twice, because we hadn’t learned enough songs for the encore. But it went down so great that then the BBC invited us to the Hyde Park concert for Radio 2 [in 2014], and that’s what got us started, really.”

He added: “The crowds have been just beyond belief, beyond what I ever imagined that it would be. The group is fantastic; they’re all brilliant players. … I hear it later each night, and it sounds really good — a big, posh sound.”

He reflected that his current 13-piece band gave him the chance to stage concerts that “really sounds like the records of ELO.” His impression of live performance had changed so much that two songs on the new LP, “Time of Our Life” and “Just One More Time,” address his enjoyment of the live experience.

“I’m having the time of me life,” he confirmed. “Just because I don’t jump up and down and do somersaults and stuff, it doesn’t mean I’m not having a great time, because I am. I’m just not a dancer, you know; I’m not one of them blokes. I just sing and play, which I think is enough, because I’m trying to make it sound as good as possible. It’s trying to recreate the sound that I imagined ELO would have been, forever, really, from day one. It never has been until now. For the last the last five years, it’s been really good.”

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