I really enjoyed the concert (and someone told me that they thought that tonight was better than the Dublin concert) but I thought that the concert on Friday was even better. A lot of this was due to the audience I thought as they really didn’t get going anywhere near as much as Friday’s crowd.

I wondered if part of this reason was because there was no opening act? I don’t mean that just because Kasim didn’t open but purely that part of the job of an opening act is to warm up an audience. It is very difficult for a crowd that have been standing (note STANDING!) and waiting for over two hours to go from thinking about how much their feet ache and how bored they are with videos to wild applause and excitement just at the drop of a hat. Having an opening act (any opening act) builds up the excitement so that they crowd can climax together when the main act erupts on stage!

By the time that the live music had started in Life Is A Lemon, the audience had warmed up a bit but there was still visibly less clapping along than there was on Friday. Also tonight this seemed a shorter version of the song (as at Wembley).

Mercury Blues was good tonight and Meat had quite a long “battle” with Paul Crook and Randy Flowers on their guitars. Meat certainly must be quite a guitar player as even when he broke two strings on his guitar, he still managed to play just as well and even played the notes that those two strings would have played! Tonight when Meat Loaf gave them the finger he said that it wasn’t what they thought but that he was giving them a score of -1!

Tonight Meat Loaf did a long ad-libbing into Testify before he and Kasim both say “Testify” three times each! Kasim then played his intro into the song at the centre of the stage. Tonight Meat Loaf has obviously decided that unwinding a microphone lead from a stand is beyond him so he just picked Kasim’s microphone stand and moved it to the centre of the stage for their duet although Kasim did have to kick some cable into place to help out! The duet is now one of my favourites parts of the concert. Unfortunately the cameramen (who have been brilliant so far on this tour) decided to go AWOL from the front of the stage and mainly showed close-ups of all the rest of the band except Kasim who was at the centre of the stage!!

Sadly (and a bit rudely I thought) after Kasim had finished his singing part trainee-roadie Meat Loaf moved Kasim’s mike stand back to it’s place at the side of the stage….goodness knows why he couldn’t have just left it centre stage for the rest of the song!

Tonight in You Took The Words the band had to sing for far longer than they did on Friday before Meat Loaf indicated for them to stop and for the audience to take over and the crowd didn’t seem to sing as loud and enthusiastically (IMHO) as on Friday.

Considering that the single Couldn’t Have Said It Better didn’t even get in the Top Thirty, it seems that most people at these concerts (or at least those at the front) really know the words to that song and seem to enjoy singing along to that one! It always takes a while for most people to recognise it though as they start with some loud drumming that isn’t on the record.

I think Frying Pan gets better each time I hear it. It might be totally my imagination but there seems to be far more energy in the song that there was at Birmingham almost a month ago now. As Meat Loaf started the second verse I noticed that he looked across at Kasim for acknowledgement that he was singing the correct verse!

For some reason Patti went dashing off stage before the end of that song and came back on in Did I Say That wearing an outfit I haven’t seen at these UK concerts. It was just black leggings and a black top with a flowing gown over it but I wondered why she got changed as she hasn’t before.

Tonight Kasim and Randy must have got through half a tour’s worth of guitar picks as the people around me all seemed to want one and were almost all obliged! It was good fun to watch!

After Did I Say That we had part of I’d Lie For You (I DO wish that they’d play the whole song and not just half of it!). Meat Loaf then kept his stool at the front of the stage and explained again that Forever Young was going to have been the last song he ever recorded as he genuinely planned to stop after the Couldn’t Have Said It Better album. He then joked that it was to be his last other than his Christmas album and then proceeded to sing part of Silent Night! He went on to say that last January Jim Steinman had rung him up and suggested Bat Out Of Hell III. Meat Loaf said that they have a press conference planned for 9th January “and another one in Europe later” when they will announce BOOHIII to the press. He then went on to say something about the fact that Jim Steinman will be joining him on stage somewhere in Europe (I think). They then played Forever Young but I think it was very badly lacking in the seven words department!

Next it was Paradise By The Dashboard Light with that silly “guess the animal” feature. Earlier (before Forever Young) Meat Loaf had mentioned his operation and about how many needles he had had and that now he has two extra openings in his body so in Paradise when Patti prodded him a bit, he exaggerated it more and said something that I didn’t catch (I’ve been struggling with Irish accents all weekend so I couldn’t handle an American one too!). Patti found whatever he said absolutely hilarious and could hardly get her next few lines out as she was in fits of laughter! She must have sung Paradise 1,000 times or so and she always puts so much into that song and yet it was lovely to see her almost helpless with laughter tonight!

After Paradise Meat Loaf introduced the band and it was obvious that the band knew that extra lines were going to be added to their names on the screens as both Kasim and Randy Flowers started reading it from behind the screen backwards! Eventually Kasim just came to the front of the stage to read it! Tonight as well as how Meat Loaf introduces them, they had things like “He wants pink hair - John The Hammer Miceli” and “For a good time call!!! Mark Alexander” and so on. Kasim’s was “Always ready for Action Mr Casanova Kasim The Kid Sulton”!

They then went off stage and the band came back and played the intro to Anything For Love while Meat Loaf got changed into his circa 1993 outfit. Tonight it seemed to me (but I could be wrong) that Patti was raised a bit higher on her sofa….I hope she’s checked her “accidental falling from a sofa suspended 7 feet in the air” clause on her insurance policy!

Finally we had the wonderful Bat Out Of Hell. Tonight Kasim used his mauve guitar for this song. In fact he only used that new(?) brown / black guitar tonight for Did I Say That. It was then time for the band bow (and for John to give out about 8 drumsticks!) and sadly for me Kasim left the stage!

As I’ve said before, I did enjoy this concert but I just thought that the one on Friday was the better of the two Belfast concerts and I think that a lot of that was due to the crowd (and the fact that they weren’t warmed up). Generally I think that standing crowds are more receptive than seated crowds and although I complain about having to stand for 5 hours or so, I prefer those concerts. Especially if you have most seats on the “wrong” side of the stage!

And I’ll be back in Belfast again next week (no doubt complaining about standing again!).