We had a great journey up to Newcastle until we got to within a few miles from the venue as there was a massive traffic jam. Thankfully we just made it in time to see Kasim’s opening set.

After his introduction, Kasim came out on stage with his confident “Hello Newcastle!” and proceeded to tell us about himself and launched into Don’t Hold Me Back.

Next Kasim told us about Quid Pro Quo (he’s really got that patter down to a fine art now!) and sang Before She Was Gone. It may have been my imagination but it seemed to me that all the “My xxx is” at the end seemed longer again tonight.

Next Kasim mentioned that they had just played three concerts in Ireland and Northern Ireland and that “the last three concerts we have played have been amongst our best ever”.

Kasim finished his set with Sacrifice and that song seemed to really go down well with the crowd tonight!

It seems that Meat Loaf is keeping that awful flat-line opening to his show. As I’ve said before, personally I don’t like it (having been through something similar) but as the alternative is just listening to the Wasted Youth Speech I suppose it’s something for the Meat Loaf fans to look at. As Meat Loaf hides his mask under the sheet, it does make him look as though he has a bit bulge on his chest!

There’s not much you can say about Do It other than it’s an effective opener to the concert. I don’t think it’s my imagination but I’m sure that both Kasim and Randy don’t move around as fast as they did at Plymouth! Paul still does but then Paul seems to move everywhere fast!

Tonight I was over on Paul’s side of the stage again so it gave me the opportunity to have a good look at his guitar playing and he’s very impressive. All his foot movements are interesting too as he has quite a collection of pedals!

The one thing I keep forgetting to mention is how shrill Kasim can whistle! He does the three (and sometimes four) whistles during Mercury Blues and I always expect to see a pack of dogs come running into the venue when he does that! And I still can’t work out why they wave their hands in the air during that song! The tour mystery!

Thankfully Meat Loaf seems to have left that naff light thing in Belfast as tonight he just did the cheering thing at the intro into DeadRinger For Love. Tonight Patti lit a cigarette when she was chatting to Kasim and Randy and they all took turns to have a drag on it. I wasn’t too impressed to see though that at one point she dropped it onto the stage and then still put it back in her mouth!

The majority of the audience sat for the first few songs (me included but my feet are still recovering from Belfast!) but Meat Loaf made us all get up during You Took The Words and then we stayed standing after that.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Kasim balances out the stage a lot. It seems that whenever Randy, Paul and Meat Loaf are on the right side of the stage, Kasim will stay on the left and if Meat Loaf goes over to Randy on the left then Kasim will move over to the right side……either that or he’s avoiding Meat Loaf! Seriously I think it’s good that he does that as it does make a better visual show for all the audience! Kasim is also the only band member who will go right to the edges of the stage and wave to them (to the people who are already only getting a side view).

For the first time since he got to the UK, Meat Loaf did a bit of his criss-crossing run across the stage at the end of All Revved Up. He only went about halfway across the stage but it seemed to me as though he’s getting a bit more energy or confidence now.

It looks like they’ll be going over the budget on this tour as someone must have had the simple but brilliant idea of getting a spare microphone for Meat Loaf to move to the middle of the stage so that Kasim can sing centre stage in Testify! It certainly saves all that difficult unwinding the lead from the stand manoeuvre!

Meat Loaf again mentioned Bat Out Of Hell III before he sang Forever Young (good publicity!) and I’m now beginning to resign myself to the fact that Kasim will never again sing those seven words in that song! (I guess that if I called it a half hearted” version, I’d get into a load of trouble!) Kasim played a lot of that song (when Patti was singing) over on Paul’s side of the stage beside him and he seemed to be having quite a conversation with my friend who was standing next to me. Afterwards she said that he seemed to be saying that he had something wrong with his mouth or his jaw?

Tonight in that silly “Guess The Animal” part in Paradise, Meat Loaf demonstrated what both Patti and I took to be a kangaroo…..apparently it was a rabbit (a technical point but rabbits don’t jump on two legs, they hop!). Meat Loaf said that Patti probably didn’t get it as you don’t often get fat rabbits!

There was a really lovely touch at the end of Paradise as they went into a few bars of Rule Britannia (which is kind of like the UK second National Anthem) and most people around me mentioned it.

As I was on that side, for the first time I noticed that they lower the cables for the sofa and then wheel it on stage with Patti already lying on it. From my angle I had a really funny view when she was in the air of the bottom of Patti’s two boots and her face peering over!

It was then time for Bat Out Of Hell which I love and then a nightmare journey home that I hated as it was thick fog for most of the journey so I didn’t get home until 7.00am!

I may moan but I’ll be doing that journey again in January!

Click here for a review, photos and video clips of this concert by Deb Matheson.