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Don't Hold Me Back Before She Was Gone Sacrifice
Wasted Youth Speech
Forever Young Unfortunately we had a horrendous journey getting there! We left my house at 6.30am, the boat was crowded worse then I’ve ever seen it and it was delayed for the first time ever for me. I had used a different website for driving directions and discovered that a degree in geography was needed to understand them! We entered the large Antwerp ring road from the south west and the directions sent us off an exit heading north west instead of north east so after an hours driving, we realised that we were heading back towards the coast again! The error and getting back on the correct road added an extra 3 hours to our journey! As Kasim was listed as going on stage at 6.45pm I had to drive at up to 95mph at points to try to get there in time - German autobahns have no speed limit thankfully! When we did reach the venue, the remaining parking spaces were in a field right at the back with a long walk to the venue and I was despairing of ever seeing Kasim as more than a dot in the distance above thousands of tall German people! I also kept saying “if we’ve travelled for 12 hours and I miss Kasim’s set, I will be frightfully annoyed” but in more colourful language! Thankfully, EXACTLY as I ran into the standing area at the venue, I heard a voice announce “KASIM SULTON!!” - phew! In fact an additional two minute delay would have been better as I spent most of Sacrifice trying to get somewhere where I could see him more clearly and catching my breath but I certainly wasn’t complaining! As soon as Kasim walked on stage he said good evening and his name in German which was obviously appreciated by the crowd. He then said that was all the German he knew! He explained that he also plays in Meat Loaf’s band and then launched into Don’t Hold Me Back - Kasim’s voice was VERY strong tonight which was brilliant to hear! Kasim played a kind of electric acoustic guitar (not a wooden one) which was the one that he later played Testify on too. (As I didn’t take any photos) Kasim was wearing his stripy shirt that is featured in most photos in the tour book and black trousers. Next Kasim mentioned Quid Pro Quo and sang Before She Was Gone from the CD. Again he sounded really strong and it was great to see Kasim play HIS music in front of a decent sized audience.
Next, in this all too short set, Kasim mentioned his website www.KasimSulton.com
Although the best part of the concert was over, my friend and I decided that we would stay for the rest of the show! We managed to make our way nearer the stage and amazingly, we got into about the fourth (standing) row on Kasim’s side of the stage which was just perfect! Once Meat Loaf came on stage, we realised why we’d been allowed to stand there as the three people in front of us were very drunk and were dancing and shouting to each other throughout most of the concert! Although usually things don’t distract me too much when Kasim is on stage, I did keep a wary eye on their arms flaying around as they all constantly had lighted cigarettes between their fingers!
I’d only discovered the previous evening that the tickets said “open air” on them so I had horrendous visions of standing outside in the freezing cold in October watching Kasim but thankfully people at MLUKFC had posted that there is a removable glass roof and that they have an underground heating system. In fact the glass roof was shut, the floor was actually cold to the touch but they did have loads of two bar electric fires suspended from the ceiling so it really felt quite cosy there!
This venue was built to hold tennis matches so the majority of the people were seated around the outside (another reason why it wasn’t too difficult to get near the front) so we were standing on a hard clay court. I think the venue held about 4,000 people. The standing area was sold out and most of the seats looked to be full too, although there were some ticket touts outside with tickets available.
We were told that Meat Loaf was due to start at 7.15pm but he came on stage at about 7.30pm and played until 9.45pm. A few general comments first…..
As anyone who has read my review of the Plymouth concert will know, I was very disappointed in the presentation of the songs. I enjoyed that concert itself (let’s face it, I ALWAYS enjoy seeing Kasim on stage) and initially with the first showing of the masks in Do It!, I was very impressed but then they started performing the same arrangements of the songs as on previous tours (most noticeably on the tour in 2002) and even did the same “stories” in songs like Paradise. I thought at least they could have played a different arrangement of some of the songs and definitely thought out a new twist to Paradise by the time the tour started as it was already three weeks later than originally planned.
In Halle it seemed to me that it was finally a brand new tour and not a rehash of 2002. Of course there are songs that Meat Loaf played in Halle that he plays at most (every) concert and I expected that. Although I personally don’t much like the songs, I realise that he HAS to play both Anything For Love and Paradise (and I certainly wouldn’t like to see a concert without him singing Bat Out Of Hell) but this time they recreated part of the video for Anything For Love rather than rehashing the stop / start beginning again and that sort of attention to details made all the difference to me for this concert.
We were standing beside some speakers so the sound wasn’t perfect in that area but it seemed to me that the background vocals were slightly too quiet. Anyone who knows me, will know that I tend not to listen to Meat Loaf’s vocals much but after talking to a couple of realistic fans afterwards (these are fans who WILL say when he has a less than perfect night), they both said that his voice was very good and strong tonight which was reassuring considering the throat problems he had recently. There were problems with his microphone near the beginning of the concert and then the one he switched to also wasn’t working correctly so he switched again but his voice itself was fine apparently - certainly at one point (in Anything For Love I think) he held a note and held it for far longer than I’ve heard him hold one recently.
The lighting at this concert was one of the best of the Meat Loaf concerts that I’ve seen. They knew exactly when to light up the individual band members and the coloured lighting for different songs was very effective. For the beginning of Rock and Roll Dreams on previous tours they used a rolling green and then blue (I think) light around the venues but this time it was a soft green light with subtle patterns (or that’s how it appeared to me).
The most noticeable difference in the band was that Renee Cologne was replaced by someone Meat Loaf introduced as “We call her CC” (she’s listed in the tour program as that too) and she was a real asset to the band in my humble opinion. Obviously I watch Kasim a fair amount of the time and when Pearl, Sarah Douglas and Renee Cologne were in that role, I had to remember to look at them, whereas CC caught my attention as she had really good stage presence - she was confident, moved very well and looked as though she was enjoying herself too! She’s quite young and has a good slim figure which they dressed in ever increasing revealing outfits (both her and Patti changed costumes about 6 times!) - in fact one time, I thought that she’d forgotten to put her dress on over her underwear!
CC’s performance wasn’t perfect (one time she totally missed a line and it looked like Patti was doing some choreographed cheerleader dancing but CC was doing something totally different) but for a first concert with Meat Loaf, she did really well. Again, I couldn’t hear her vocals too well and I don’t know if that was because her voice was quieter or the sound was too low or if it was due to where I was standing but she traded vocals with Patti in part of Life Is A Lemon and her voice sounded strong.
Patti seemed really full of energy and enthusiasm tonight. She never puts in a bad performance but I thought she seemed less energetic in Plymouth but tonight she was full of beans - even on songs like Bat Out Of Hell where she is in the background, she never stopped moving. She was also in far more revealing outfits than of late and is looking very slim. Her hair seems longer and is straighter too.
Paul Crook was another person who was just bouncing all over the stage - at one point I thought he was a human fly as he just leapt onto the drum riser! From where I was standing, I couldn’t see him too well for most of the concert but when he was leaping around the rest of the stage, he really seemed to be enjoying himself too.
Randy Flowers has improved dramatically from Plymouth IMHO. At that concert, he looked a bit nervous and unsure of himself on stage but tonight he was far more confident and didn’t hesitate to move to the front (and centre) of the stage whenever he could. Meat Loaf introduced him as playing lead guitar as well as guitar, keyboards and vocals and certainly having both him and Paul playing lead guitar at times in the set gives a “rockier” slant to the songs which I like.
I always think that Mark shows off his talents best on the slow songs but there aren’t many in this set. At one point in the concert, Meat Loaf kicked away his piano stool so that he had to stand and play (he later replaced it for him) which was funny to see. Parts like the beginning of Did I Say That? and Anything For Love feature Mark really strongly.
For some reason at this concert, Meat Loaf didn’t highlight John’s drumming (as he often does) but certainly it was as perfect as it always is. At one point I happened to be looking at him as he broke one of his drumsticks and he just discarded it and bashed the next beat with no interruption at all!
Kasim played a brilliant concert tonight. He seemed to have a lot of energy too and seemed more relaxed than both Plymouth and Cologne. I did notice that he didn’t make eye contact with audience members quite as much as normal (he often smiles at youngsters near the front) as most of the concert he seemed to be looking at the rest of the band and at Meat Loaf. One thing that he did several times was that if Meat had Randy and / or Paul at the left of the stage, Kasim would move to the far right of the stage to give those people something to view too (lucky them!).
Now a more detailed account of the concert so stop reading if you don’t want to know what happens and to be surprised!
Promptly at 7.30pm all the lights were lowered and the Jim Steinman Wasted Youth speech was played. They next went into Do It! with the masks and lighting. From where I was standing I could see the band members clearer than at Plymouth (which means the effect is less) and certainly things like the tail of Kasim’s light-coloured shirt sticking out the bottom of his black mask-top hood thing was visible!
Patti, CC (and I think Mark does too) play the drums while the guitarists move around the blackened stage with white gloves and masks on which gives a great special effect. Once again, I’m pretty sure that this was a mimed song (it doesn’t last very long anyway) as certainly Kasim was nowhere near a microphone at all during the song and his voice could be clearly heard! However it’s done, it’s an effective start to the concert (but then it strikes me weird that the first two songs of the concert are tapes!).
Next they played Life Is A Lemon which has been one of the opening songs at almost all of the Meat Loaf concerts that I’ve seen but it just gets the audience going so well!! There were a few changes to the song as I’m pretty sure that the taped “oohs” and “aahs” at the beginning weren’t played but they did darken the stage for the “fade to black” line again. At the end of Lemon Meat Loaf just sang the “And I Want”s (on previous tours, Kasim has sung them with him too).
A new part was that for the “what about….” part when usually Patti sings it, tonight her and CC traded vocals to sing it in turn. Unfortunately at one point CC didn’t sing one line but other than that, it sounded good, and looked good too as they kept moving around Meat Loaf at the front of the stage. CC was dressed for this song in a bright red tight-fitting devil outfit, complete with a red tripod. Patti was dressed all in white (with a white staff-thing) with a few feathers. I think she was supposed to look like an angel but I just kept thinking about Mary Had A Little Lamb with the staff!
Paul Crook does a weird wide stepping walk across the stage at times so during that song, Meat Loaf got him to do it and then parodied his walk (obviously totally exaggerating it).
The presentation of Mercury Blues was very similar to on the tour last year but it’s a rocking song from the new album so it’s effective to play it at the beginning of the concert. I just don’t understand why during the song, there’s one part where they all raise one hand in the air and slightly move it. Maybe it’s an American thing but I’m yet to find anyone who can explain it to me.
They kept the rocking opening theme going with Lawyers, Guns and Money but before they started, Meat Loaf announced that this song was for Warren Zevon. When they got to “the sh!t has hit the fan” part, Meat Loaf thankfully just sang it normally whereas previously he’s often over-exaggerated that part.
Next up was DeadRinger For Love which is a song that I hate and unfortunately Meat Loaf often includes on European set lists. This had a VERY long intro as they had Kasim, Patti and Randy standing on the left side of the stage “chatting” in a group and CC and Paul on the right side (similar but not the same as he’s performed it on other tours). I’m pretty sure that it was at this point that both Patti and CC were dressed as cheerleaders in short skirts. [I've since found out that it wasn't!] Meat Loaf tried to get CC and then Patti interested in him. Leaving aside the moral issue of a 56 year old guy trying to make a move on cheerleaders, this is one of the entertaining features of a Meat Loaf concert. Although I prefer to see Kasim playing in a more serious music setting on stage, whatever you say about Meat Loaf, he does put on a good entertaining concert as he must know that he’s hardly an attractive physical specimen and yet he sets himself up as someone who thinks that he can pulls the girls (and even deliberately has a silly look on his face) - it’s his willingness to make fun of himself on stage that entertains the audiences. After he and Patti sang the song together, at the end, he said something about having a great idea - “let’s go to my place” and ran across the stage expecting his poor victim to follow him. Obviously Patti didn’t so he tried it again a couple of times until she walked off the opposite side of the stage so he decided that a better idea is for him to go to her place! In his dreams!
While Meat Loaf was making his way around the back of the stage, the musicians played their long intro into All Revved Up. It was also reassuring to see that Meat Loaf still had the energy (and the knees) to do his cross-walking part across the stage at the end of this song.
Other than for Do It!, Kasim played his pearl coloured bass guitar for all of the songs up until this point of the concert. He then went off-stage and switched to the non-wooden acoustic guitar that he played with during his opening set for Testify. When they played Testify in Plymouth, Meat Loaf stretched this song out a lot by doing a load of gospel-type talking in the middle. Thankfully this was a much slicker performance of the song.
I’m typing this review after only dozing for about half an hour in the past 36 hours so my thoughts aren’t 100% coherent but at some point in the concert, Patti and CC went to the front of the stage with some silver pom-poms and sang some vocals together. I think it was during Testify but I could well be wrong….I’ll remember when I see my second concert! Certainly I thought that if they were supposed to be cheerleaders then choreographed identical movements would have looked more convincing….it seemed to me that Patti had thought out her movements but CC was making them up as she went along.
After Testify, Kasim switched to his maroon coloured bass and then played it for the rest of the concert. The first song they sang was another of my least-favourite Meat Loaf songs Anything For Love. Thankfully it was a straight forwarded performance of the song with no stop / start beginning. When it came to Patti’s vocals, the spotlight caught her sitting down on the right side of the stage. After she’d sung a few lines, it became apparent that she was actually sitting on a chaise-lounge and it started raising in the air, just like in the video with Dana Patrick! I thought that was a lovely inspired addition to the show! By the time Patti gets to the “screwing around” line, she is just above Meat Loaf’s head. Thankfully he didn’t go on too much about that line and after a brief pause, sang his response. The chaise-lounge was then lowered and he helped Patti up. Patti was wearing a long fitted light coloured dress which is also similar to the one in the video.
Meat Loaf then led Patti across to the middle of the stage and picked up a bouquet of red roses and they stand there while the Red Rose speech is played. Obviously they then went into You Took The Words Right Outta My Mouth in which Kasim’s vocal come across SO clearly! At the end, Meat Loaf got the audience to sing it louder and louder (but not for as long as normal) and thankfully they didn’t turn the lights onto the audience - I HATE it when they do that!
Next they sang Couldn’t Have Said It Better but this audience generally as a whole didn’t sing along on this track as much as the audiences earlier this year did in Amsterdam and Plymouth. They seemed to know the songs from Bat I and Bat II but not so much from Couldn’t Have Said It Better.
Next was one of my favourites, Rock and Roll Dreams, making a welcome return to a tour setlist. Of course the fact that Kasim sings part of the opening bit of the song solo too doesn’t hurt it’s cause, but I think that some of the words are really poignant and I love the part at the end where all the guitarists play their hearts out at the front of the stage (plus it gives us a nice chance to see Kasim close-up!).
Another of my least favourites was next - Paradise By The Dashboard Light. Their “play” of the song appeared to be the same or similar to how it was played at the later concerts on the recent US leg of the tour - a Grease parody with Patti wearing a blonde wig and Meat in a white jacked and baseball cap.
I must admit that I can’t recall too much about this performance, partly because I just don’t like the song and partly because Kasim moved to the high riser during a lot of the song and him silhouetted at the back totally distracted me from what was happening at the front of the stage! I do remember at one point, Patti lighting up a cigarette and Meat trying to light it for her but his lighter “not”(?) working so he said into the microphone that as it was Germany and everybody smokes there, for the audience to light up their lighters which was effective to look at in the venue.
Meat Loaf then introduced the band - he made a great point of mentioning that Kasim was the bass player on Bat Out Of Hell and then they sang Did I Say That? He said that it was the first single released from the album but whereas when they played it in Cologne back in January most people were singing along to it, very few appeared to be tonight (at least around me).
We then had one of my favourites, Bat Out Of Hell. There’s recently been a lot of discussion in places on the Internet about songs being sung the same way but I think that this should be compulsory to be sung the same way as I don’t think you can improve on it!
We then had the band bow at the front of the stage and the band walked off but, of course, the concert wasn’t finished yet!
Meat Loaf posted on MLUKFC that they were going to be playing both Forever Young and We Are Family and personally I though this spoilt it a bit as I like a surprise. I guess my surprise was that Meat Loaf decided to end his concert with two songs that are cover songs. Although Forever Young is on his new album, I still think of it as a Bob Dylan song. We Are Family was a big hit for Sister Sledge in UK (I’ve been told that The Pointer Sisters had a hit with it elsewhere too.)
Meat Loaf introduced Forever Young as being the hardest track on the album to record as he had to stop a few times because he was in tears. I know that’s kind of an accepted American thing to say but if he had said that in my local pub, he would have been thought of as a right wimp! It does have lovely words though.
Talking about words, it really made me laugh that Kasim has the grand total of SEVEN words to sing in that song! At the end of the first chorus, Kasim just sang “Stay” so I wondered if he had mistakenly missed singing the beginning of that line but no, in the second chorus, he again just sang “Stay”! He next sings “Forever Young” and “Forever Young” and then in the final chorus “Stay” again! For someone with such an incredible voice, it seems a total waste of his talents to me! In fact in case Meat Loaf gets emotional again, why not have Kasim sing the song like a real man and Meat Loaf try to get out the seven words between his outbreaks of tears?!!
The musical end of Forever Young was elongated compared to the album and during that part Patti sang some strong background vocals. This was only the second song that Meat Loaf sang seated (he sang the beginning of Did I Say That? on a stool too).
The final song was We Are Family. Meat Loaf came on playing a guitar that was covered in the colours of the German flag and during the song three German flags were unrolled from the ceiling. There was also an attempt to send out a load of confetti into the audience from a cannon on either side of the stage but that failed badly as only about 20 pieces came out from one! The stage hands will have to work on that effect!
This was obviously the German version of the US finale of Livin’ In The USA which was apparently such a great success. Unfortunately at the post-concert inquest we were all of the opinion that it was a relative flop tonight. (Maybe flop is too strong a word but I certainly think that the reaction of the crowd was nowhere near what they were expecting.)
Firstly we thought that it was due to the nationalist attitude. In America, people are very much geared towards hearing and thinking “God Bless America” and flying the flag from all available places which is lovely to see but there just isn’t the same sort of mentality in Germany. I think it would work well in Ireland (another country that’s proud of it’s nationhood) but I doubt that it would go down so well in UK….you just don’t see “God Save UK” signs anyway (people say “God save the Queen” but not “God Save Britain”), plus there is currently a strong lobby to split the country into England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. One German also explained to me last night that in some ways due to the Second Word War, Germans tend to veer away from displays of nationalism which is probably why there wasn’t a massive cheer when the German flags were displayed.
Secondly we thought that We The Family wasn’t really the best song to chose. The chances are that it’s kind of a subtle political Gulf War message (maybe to thank the Germans for their support of US) but the words “We are family, I’ve got all my sisters with me” seems strange considering that there are only 2 girls on stage. If there was a gospel choir up there or Meat Loaf got a load of women on stage to sing it too, it would make more sense. (I didn’t suggest it at the inquest but I think that the words of Kasim’s song We The People are FAR more appropriate….but it’s not a song that most people know so wouldn’t be suitable for a finale. I know it’s just a pipe dream….!)
Obviously as this was the first concert (and I’m suffering from lack of sleep!), there are things that I’ve missed out totally (for example, I remember Meat Loaf on his back with Patti standing across him at one point but I can’t recall where this came in the concert as probably Kasim was doing some great guitar playing at the time) but hopefully this “mini” review will give people some idea about the concert.
Afterwards we went out to the merchandise stall (well, tent) and it was disappointing to see that a cover of Quid Pro Quo was just pinned up on a side wall with nothing to say what it is or how much it was! (It’s actually one of the best albums ever and they were charging 15 Euros.) I hope something is soon done about that as I’m sure that even a small “Kasim Sulton - Quid Pro Quo” sign would bring people’s attention to it!
The tour program contains 15 photos of Kasim (of varying size and appeal - there’s an unusual shot where he appears to be checking that his flies are done up!), plus his name is mentioned in it three times! Thankfully they spell it correctly but the same can’t be said for Mark Alexander as a photo of him has the by-line Mark Andersen! They also appear to have confused a photo of John Miceli with one of Meat as on the pages of all Meat, they have one of John which at first glance looks like Meat Loaf! There’s also a photo of me in it so Meat Loaf will be hearing from my lawyer soon!
One amusing anecdote was that during the concert, I felt something hit me on the face. I turned to see Randy Flowers had obviously just thrown a guitar pick and thought no more of it (other than he’ll be hearing from my lawyer too soon!). On my way to my car, I felt in my coat pocket and pulled out one of Randy’s guitar picks! I’ve heard people say that Kasim is very accurate with guitar pick throwing but to throw picks into people’s pockets for safe-keeping is an amazing feat!
As I openly said before, I was very disappointed with the Plymouth concert and comments I’ve heard from realistic fans who went to the US concerts. None of us said that we didn’t enjoy the concerts but just that we felt that for supposedly Meat Loaf’s Last Word Tour, we hoped that he would be pulling out all the stops to go out on a high note. I hoped all along that once he got to the European leg of the tour (and the larger audience sizes) that they would pull together an impressive tour that will be a fitting memory for his fans. After tonight’s concert, I think they’ve done that.
To quote Kasim Sulton “as we start this European / U.K. tour I know each and every person attending these shows will remember them as some of Meat Loaf's best.”
If tonight is anything to go by, I Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself!
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