The world is suddenly a darker place. All our lives are suddenly less illuminated. It is almost impossible to put into words what the death of my friend, Kelly, means to me. All I know is that I will miss desperately his sense of humour, sense of fun, his larger than life stage presence, his musicality, his talent, his warmth ….. and everything that Kelly was.

On tour, he was my greatest friend. When I was having health problems, and waking up in the middle of the night, in some far-flung place 5,000 miles from home with some extremely worrying things happening to me, Kelly told me to call him, whatever time of the night, and he would come and help me through my difficulties. That was the kind of friend he was, and the hole he will leave will be impossible to fill.

Kelly was responsible for me joining ELO Pt2 back in 1993. We met again at a pub in Wombourne, where he lived, and where I was playing a pretty horrible gig as a solo artist. We talked about Don Arden, ELO, the Spaceship Tour of 1978, and just connected. When he Mik, Eric, Lou and Bev were trying to put ELO Pt2 back together after the debacle of the Moscow Symphony shows etc, he put my name forward when it became clear that Neil Lockwood and Pete Haycock didn’t fancy it. Joining the guys changed my life, and although he used to look at me and say ‘sorry’ (sometimes on stage) when things were going badly or we were playing some awful gig at a RibFest in the USA, I am SO glad he campaigned for me to join the band because I would not have missed it for the world.

At the moment, we are all in shock at the thought that we will never get to see our friend onstage again, never get to hear any more of his (sometimes) terrible jokes and plays on words, never get to see any of his stereo photos, never get to enjoy a post-concert drink and laugh with him and go to bed feeling the world to be a better place because we have spent time with him …. but we should all do what he would want us to do, which is celebrate his life, celebrate his music, and celebrate the fact that we all knew and enjoyed this unique man.