The concert tonight started at 8.00pm (half an hour late) so I don’t understand why Kasim didn’t play his opening set (other than if they left the stools back in US!). Obviously I found it very disappointing but also some people around me mentioned the fact that the tickets did say that there was supposed to be a “support act”.

We had the usual morbid beginning to Meat Loaf’s set (I was hoping that they’d stop that and in fact the people behind me were asking why Meat Loaf was lying on the trolley so obviously they hadn’t heard about his heart procedure two months ago) and then Do It with the masks so I never think that the concert really gets started until Life Is A Lemon.

The Life Is A Lemon / Mercury Blues / Lawyers, Guns and Money opener was good again tonight. As I didn’t take any photos tonight, Kasim was wearing one of his embroidered jackets with a black shirt and black trousers.

The intro into DeadRinger For Love just seems to get longer and longer - tonight Meat Loaf wore some sunglasses when he tried to chat to Patti. She was wearing a white feather boa which near the beginning of the song, she put around his neck which made most of the band laugh. He then wore it for a while and posed with it - he certainly knows how to make fun of himself! For the first time that I’ve known, Patti got her words wrong during DeadRinger tonight which made both her and Meat Loaf laugh.

There seemed to be a total mess-up at the beginning of Testify tonight. After Meat Loaf said the word “Testify” and Kasim repeats it all echoy (they did that more times than normal tonight), then Randy started the faster guitar intro into the song but then stopped as the recorded voice talking part hadn’t been played! They then played the tape and they started the fast part again. For some reason Kasim didn’t use his orange guitar (the one he uses for his opening set) for this song as he usually does but used his mauve one and I know they had it as I’d seen Charlie tuning it earlier! Meat Loaf had moved the extra microphone to the middle of the stage but for some reason Kasim stayed back at his microphone to sing his lead vocals. CC used the middle microphone after she’d obviously checked with Kasim whether she should stay there or share his. Later, as I was queuing to pay almost $17 to park my car(did I mention this extortionate amount?!!) the couple behind me were actually discussing the fact that the other two guitarists were often spotlighted but that “this one” (pointing to a photo of Kasim in the tour programme) stayed back.

This concert had been postponed twice last year (once only a couple of hours before the concert so that loads of people actually went to the venue) and Meat Loaf brought this up a couple of times during the concert. At the beginning of All Revved Up, Meat Loaf sang “Twice revved up with no place to go” and when we didn’t sing “with all your heart and soul” during You Took The Words Right Outta My Mouth he mentioned that we had been all geared up to attend this concert twice before so that we should be able to sing it properly tonight!

During tonight’s intro into Couldn’t Have Said It Better, Meat Loaf (he changes it at most concerts) said that there was a line in the Magna Carta which said “I Couldn’t Have Said It Better” which struck me as slightly strange as the Magna Carta was signed by King John who was King of England and not King of Wales which is where the concert was held tonight! These Americans and their ropey knowledge of British history…..!

Meat Loaf really seemed to be having fun on stage tonight and at the beginning of Out Of The Frying Pan (And Into The Fire) he made Kasim, Randy Flowers and Paul Crook stand together and played the three cords at the beginning a few times! He then remarked that Kasim had played with him for “years and years” and that he had never seen him locking so bewildered! Meat Loaf then told Kasim to go over to him as he had something to tell him and they both had a joke about Kasim not being able to hear properly because of his age! The thing that Meat Loaf wanted to tell Kasim was the opening words of the song.

After Frying Pan, the band started playing a rockier intro that I didn’t recognise at the start but it turned into Midnight At The Lost And Found. They used to play this on the 1996 tour but this version was heavier (I much preferred it!). They also played it far faster than in 1996 although it didn’t seem to quite flow properly….as though they weren’t 100% confident about playing it. I enjoyed hearing that song but I thought that it was a shame that they dropped Did I Say That to accommodate it and not a song like Lawyers, Guns and Money.

Next they sang the usual Paradise By The Dashboard Light but tonight (for the first time on this tour) Meat Loaf got down on one knee and proposed to Patti. She asked to see the ring first and it was a diamond ring that was about 3 inches high so she accepted! Next they had the silly “guess the animal” part but thankfully this was quite short as Meat Loaf just did his whale impression and then he said that Patti should do an impression so she told him to “guess this animal” and started snogging him.

During the band introductions tonight Kasim was introduced as Kasim “Dorian Gray” Sulton (as Meat Loaf had earlier indicated about him not looking his age).

After Anything For Love we then had the brilliant Bat Out Of Hell before, all too soon for me, it was time for the band bow and for Kasim to leave the stage!

It was also interesting tonight that they didn’t play Rule Britannia nor had the Union Jack flags which is understandable considering there is quite a nationalist movement in some areas of Wales (it also begs the question about, if they are only going to do these in England and not Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, why do they use Union Jacks and not the English flag?).

Roll on Manchester on Tuesday…..!

Back to Meat Loaf's Couldn't Have Said It Better World Tour