Someone who shall remain nameless (but I did utter his name a few time with the word “damn” prefixing it until I got into the actual venue!) told me that in Northern Ireland they don’t get to the venue too early so I could get there when the doors open and still get near the front so I arrived at about 6.25pm (doors open at 6.30) but there were about 600 people queued up in front of me! I was not very happy! Thankfully, as happens all over the world but especially in Ireland(!), when the doors did open, a lot of those people went to the bars in the venue so I walked in and stood three back in line with Kasim’s microphone….the absolute perfect place for me! And the best news was that there was a stool centre stage - I’d seen a band arriving with some instruments outside so I thought that maybe Kasim wasn’t opening after all!

When I entered the venue, there were signs above the barriers saying that we should keep our eyes on the puck at all times! Originally I thought that it was a spelling mistake and I was slightly concerned as I didn’t know how I could keep my two eyes on 4 guitarists and still enjoy the concert! It was only when I walked in that I remembered that this venue is also used for ice hockey games so it wasn’t a spelling mistake! In fact we stood on a temporary cork flooring which was slightly easier on the feet.

Another strange thing was that we had to give our tickets in….I’ve only known that in Switzerland before. For those people who keep all their tickets, it must have been frustrating.

I appreciate that they let people in the venues early so that they have longer to spend their money on drink but standing there for almost two hours before Kasim walks on stage is getting tougher on the legs and feet as the years pass by! At least I could listen to the conversations around me (and try to understand the accents!) which is not an option I have at the German concerts. Two guys did try to start a Mexican Wave but failed miserably! At least we did have the Meat Loaf videos to watch which is certainly a lot better than the crap music venues usually play as we’re waiting! I think that most of the people there were as bored as I was as Charlie (the guitar tech) received quite a cheer when he walked on with Kasim’s guitar! (I was a bit worried when he walked off with it again later but thankfully he didn’t touch the stool and he returned the guitar again later - phew!)

At one point a couple of people went around all the microphone stands and put down new set lists (they tore up the old ones) so, for some reason, the set list must have been changed. It appears that musicians must have a tendency to trip over single sheets of paper lying on the ground as every sheet was taped securely with four pieces of duct tape to the floor!

Just after 8.00pm (the listed start time) people started a bit of chanting and then groaned as each new video started! When they blacked out all the lights, there was a massive cheer! It was then that “Mr Kasim Sulton” was announced and there was just a deathly silence!

The more I think about this, the more I admire Kasim. He must know that people have been standing there for almost two hours to see Meat Loaf, he must know that people are there to hear loud rock music and not a guy with an acoustic guitar, he must know that lots of people will be thinking about whether to go out and get another drink or whether to stay… and yet every evening, he walks out on his own, confidentially introduces himself, plays HIS music for 15 minutes or so (and makes himself more fans). That must just take so much nerve!

The woman in front of me tonight was a prime example. As Kasim walked on stage, I heard her shout out “get him off, we want Meat Loaf”! At the end of Kasim’s first song she was clapping him, at the end of his second song when he mentioned Quid Pro Quo she repeated the name to her friend and said that she must buy it, at the end of Kasim’s third song she was actually cheering him! I was just standing there with my mouth open at this point!

As I said, there was a deathly silence when Kasim (wearing leather trousers!) first walked on stage. Thankfully that probably only lasted for (a very long) second or so and then people clapped him. He shouted out a “Hello Belfast!” and introduced himself before launching into Don’t Hold Me Back! Kasim’s voice was exceptionally good tonight. His voice was very clear with not even a touch of huskiness and he sang the note after both strong “Strong”s perfectly - it was just wonderful to hear!

Kasim next mentioned Quid Pro Quo and played Before She Was Gone from it. Tonight he sang a lot of the “My xxx is” ….. far more than he normally does.

As Kasim was obviously in the centre of the stage, I spent most of this song watching the video screens. We’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the same guys who do it every concert and they obviously really understand Kasim’s music and the way they cut from shot to another is just brilliant. I did especially enjoy the side-on long slow pan from his foot tapping on the ground, slowly up his leg, past his bum, up his arm and shoulder to his face and up to his hair!

Finally Kasim sang Sacrifice and that song really went down well with the crowd. Unfortunately he (again) had a bit of trouble getting his guitar perfectly in tune once he had added his capon …it’s a shame that they don’t sell guitars with capons already added!

Photo by Christopher Morrow

It must be difficult for Kasim to decide which songs to sing. He only has three songs (or 4 in Berlin) to try to impress people with his music. Don’t Hold Me Back is a great loud opener that emphasises his voice, Before She Was Gone appeals to the more mature audience and Sacrifice is a great closer as it shows off Kasim’s guitar playing and it’s a fast tune and yet if people really listen to the lyrics, they are very thought-provoking. Probably 95% of the audience only ever go to one Meat Loaf concert per tour but at these venues where they are playing more than once, there will be people who will be attending more than one so it was interesting that Kasim chose to change his set list at the second Birmingham concert.

(It makes it more interesting for me too! Put it this way, I’d arranged to text someone with his set list after he had played but as I’m so slow at texting, I had already typed in what I knew he was going to play before I even got to Belfast! It doesn’t help that one of the songs that Kasim usually plays is my least favourite of all his songs too.)

All to soon for me, it was time for Kasim to leave the stage. He certainly left to far more applause then when he walked on stage and a lot of cheers too!

Thankfully (for my feet!) it was only about 10 minutes later before there was a lot of activity around the hospital trolley (gurney) and two guys held up a black cloth to cover what was going on behind. They then blacked the lights and just had a spot light on Meat Loaf lying on the trolley while Patti and CC (both dressed in very short and totally impractical nurses uniforms!) wheeled him to the middle of the stage.

Over the loud speakers they played Patti’s voice and CC’s (I guess but I haven’t heard her speak) saying that he was going into cardiac arrest and that they were going to lose him before the dreadful sound of the machine peeping a flatline. Then Meat Loaf’s voice quietly says something about him checking out.

From what some people were saying (or asking) around me, it appears that they didn’t all know that he had a heart procedure just two weeks previously. As I watched my husband on a life support machine and not survive, personally I found this in quite bad taste and too near the mark considering what could have happened with Meat Loaf. However, when I heard about it in Dublin and posted about it on MLUKFC, loads of people said about how funny it was and that it was good that he could make a joke about it so I guess it’s all a matter of personal perception.

Meat Loaf then lay on the trolley while the Wasted Youth speech was played (the video screens just showed a close-up of him but they also showed that his chest was quite clearly rising and falling!). Just at the end of the speech, he got up and put his mask on and they launched into Do It! Differently to the other concerts, for this song Meat Loaf mainly stood at Patti’s microphone to “perform” it.

Next we had Life Is A Lemon and that was just brilliant as always! It’s such a great song to start the live part of the concert with as it really gets the crowd going. In fact overall the whole concert is quite a rocking one with very few slow tracks. Meat Loaf did quite a bit of his “competition guitar” playing with both Paul Crook and Randy Flowers tonight. After he had given them both the finger at the end of one, Paul rang right across the stage and fell right onto one of the speakers on his back knocking another one flying - Kasim’s face was a real picture!

(As I took no photos tonight) Kasim was wearing a black shirt and a patterned jacket (which he took off before DIST) and these incredible leather trousers! I thought that they were black but if they were, they were certainly a lighter black than his shirt. At times they looked like a dark grey, dark blue and a dark green! Nicely tight too!

After Meat Loaf had sung a couple of lines of Lawyers, Guns and Money he dedicated it to Warren Zevon.

At the beginning of DeadRinger For Love, Meat Loaf brought across a present for Patti. He got them to blacken the lights and showed her this really naff light thing that rotated! Considering how little I like that song, I really look forward to the part where they emphasis Kasim’s bass playing! Tonight he shared CC’s microphone by standing up on one of the steps!

Testify was just brilliant tonight! First Randy played his “southern guitar” part before they have some taped lyrics. Kasim was off stage changing his guitar but he soon ran on stage as it appears that removing a microphone with a lead from a stand and putting it on another seemed beyond Meat Loaf’s abilities! He just took it off the stand and started walking across the stage with it not thinking about the fact that the lead was all wrapped around the stand! Thankfully Kasim unwound the lead and Meat Loaf put Kasim’s mike onto his stand in the middle of the stage. Consequently when Kasim and Meat Loaf both say “Testify” in turn a few times, he used Randy’s microphone.

Kasim played the intro into the song at the centre of the stage and then he and Meat Loaf both dueted the song together right in the middle of the stage! It was just brilliant to see Kasim centre stage singing again! (There were loads of close-ups of him on the video screen too!) Their voices sound good together too.

Kasim Sulton centre stage in Testify
Photo by Christopher Morrow

In fact throughout the whole concert, Meat Loaf took the time to highlight all of the band. At the first couple of concerts both John Miceli and Mark Alexander were in a way a bit neglected but tonight they both got their turn in the spotlight.

Hopefully it’s only a matter of time until I forget it but when they sang All Revved Up, I kept thinking about the Wembley concert and the collapse. Thankfully tonight was a good performance of the song. Meat Loaf has started wearing a jacket with the number 68 on it for that song.

Next they sang You Took The Words Right Outta My Mouth. This was by far the best crowd of the British leg of the tour so far and they really proved it in this song! Near the beginning Meat Loaf had to tell them to stop singing and then at the part where they were supposed to sing, they certainly didn’t need to be told twice! Meat Loaf’s face was a real picture at this point too! I’m sure that having a great audience like this must really help if you’re not feeling 100%....certainly far better than some of those staid English audiences, some of whom sat through all the concerts!

The next three are some of my favourites (Couldn’t Have Said It Better, Frying Pan and Did I Say That) as they all feature loads of background vocals. When they were singing Out Of The Frying Pan (And Into The Fire) Meat Loaf started a bit of ad-libbing and then said more or less that he couldn’t work out when to start singing again so Kasim had to start him off a couple of times!

Having housed a couple of Meat Loaf Fan tour refugees over the past couple of weeks when there were no concerts and one of them knowing and telling me a bit about guitars, I was interested that in Did I Say That, Kasim was strumming his guitar differently to how he does for most of the songs as he was strumming upwards on every other beat too.

As soon as they started I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth) the crowd started clapping and cheering a lot! Meat Loaf and Patti sat on stools to sing this but sadly they didn’t sing the second verse so it made for quite a short song.

There was an interesting start to Paradise By The Dashboard Light tonight as Meat Loaf got the band to play a song I think he called Snappy Man Dresser (as he put that silver jacket on). He did say that it was totally unrehearsed and that he was singing it in a different style to how the band were playing it! Unfortunately it appears that Paradise is getting longer as Meat Loaf did this silly “guess the animal” thing with Patti in the middle of it.

At the end of Paradise he introduced the band and as each person’s name was called out, it came up on the screens with things like Patti “Hot Legs” Russo and “From Your Town” Randy Flowers - Kasim was Kasim “The Kid” Sulton!

Next they went off stage so all the crowd were clapping and cheering for more before the band came back on and played the intro into Anything For Love. When Meat Loaf came on he had changed into a black velvet jacket and white shirt - I thought this was a far better way of him changing than that silly intermission thing that made the audience fall asleep!

Finally we had Bat Out Of Hell which rarely changes but is still one of my all time favourites! For this song (and for Did I Say That earlier) Kasim used a different guitar to the ones he used in England (maybe he has “a separate guitar storage facility” in Ireland?!!!). This one is a dark brown around the strings and black at the edges (or maybe it’s his black guitar that has faded a bit?!!). Kasim certainly had some trouble with his knobs at the beginning of this song as he was twiddling them for quite a while.

And all too soon for me, it was time for Kasim to leave the stage! As I was quite near the front and not many people were taking photos around me, I didn’t take any tonight….plus I was worried that the sight of those leather trousers may have fogged up a few computer monitors!

And thankfully not a flying puck in sight all evening!