#okay so this is the Rockpalast concert from 1974

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18:56-19:01 HUGH SCREAMS

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My Thoughts on Hugh McDowell

Oookay so I’m two days late with this, but I want to make this post today anyway because there was something that inspired me to do so in the first place… Consider this a tribute to Hugh McDowell in text form!

Content warning: mentions of death, cancer and addiction, so anyone that is uncomfortable with these topics should be warned. If anyone wishes to skip past this point for what ever reason, please do so.

Two days ago, in 2018, which was roughly five years ago, Hugh McDowell sadly passed away from cancer. Sometimes, I don’t even know what to think about his death—he was so full of energy that I just cannot believe he’s…gone. He is one of my favorite members of this band, and he means so much to me.

As I have mentioned before, I didn’t get into the fandom until 2023, but I did start liking the music since early 2020. I loved the classical sound of this specific flavor of rock music, and Hugh and the rest of the string trio carried that. Once I got into the fandom, it made me realize just how interesting the people behind this music were. But since this post is specifically about Hugh, so I’m just going to talk about him in this post.

Hugh McDowell. Hugh McDowell! HUGH MCDOWELL!!! Oh how I love this man so much. I love how creative he is and that he doesn’t play the cello conventionally. No—he throws it up into the air, spins it, dances with it, and sometimes even plays it like a guitar! How cool is that!? I for one did not expect a cellist to behave like that!

And his sense of fashion, too. I love all of his very flamboyant suits, like the pink/purple one in the RockPalast concert, the cream colored one with the pink dress shirt from the RockPalast interview—and many more suits. Also I love his long hair. He’s so good at parting it, and controversial opinion incoming: while I like it to a lesser degree, the hairstyle he has in 1975 that was slightly shorter with short bangs was actually pretty good too! And his moustache—I can’t get enough of it. To a lesser extent I like his beard now too—it doesn’t really scare me like it used to. But when he only had a moustache 🤌🤌🤌also I do like his clean shaven look from late 1974 as well.

Can we talk about his personality too? This man was so full of ENERGY!!! The fact that he broke down his (or was it Bev’s?) locked hotel door will never not be funny to me. Not to mention eating parts of a tree. I once heard how he accidentally smashed his cello into bits and pieces and freaked out and was like “uhhh everyone in the audience can keep these pieces of my cello as a souvenir! 😅” How he nonchalantly kept a pet snake on the plane which scared everyone but him.

Moving on, let’s talk about his soft side— yes, Hugh McDowell’s soft side!!! He absolutely loved books, and practically read them all the time. However, I do not know what he read about: the history of classical music? Snakes? Who knows! But what we do know is that he loved to read a lot! He was also super good friends with Melvyn Gale—best friends even. He also loved his pet snake, whose name was Cleo, dearly—the two were inseparable. He even cried when he had to give her up—that’s dedication right there.

Okay, so all I’m going to say is: I am aware that he isn’t perfect. No one is. We all have our moments. Just as long as we try our best to be the best we can be, then we will go into the right direction. It absolutely breaks my heart to hear about his alcohol addiction. I do not know if he did get over it (I hope) but if I’m being honest, I know this may sound cliche and even ridiculous, but I wish I could have helped him. What I mean by this is that I wish and hope he had someone to help him regarding that. It is heavy on my heart, that if I could have helped him, I would. I really would. Still, I am glad that he had a life filled with fun and cellos, but I can’t ignore this situation…

Overall: I love this person. He is really amazing, and I wish to have him back. So this month I like to remember what an amazing ELO member he was and I love thinking of all the funny things he did.

He’s just so interesting…