This festival was loud so that I just opened my car windows and followed the sound to the venue. I parked at the harbour (free to park again!) and then followed the crowds. It was about 5.30pm by the time I got there and it was still lashing down with rain. There was a funfair beside the venue and then I had some trouble getting in as I tried to present my ticket to the person on the gate but she directed me off to the left. I tried that entrance and it turned out that that was the exit so he sent me back to where I’d been. When I explained what had happened he told me that I had to find a “house” near the entrance and trade my ticket in for a wrist band! I eventually found this portacabin and was admitted!

There were two stages at the venue which took it in turns to host the bands and Mel C was playing (again) as I arrived. She is actually gradually growing on me but her best comment was when she went out into the audience a bit (there was a ramp that lead off the stage at the front) and she said “Bloomin’ heck, it ain’t half raining” as it was pouring hard at that point! Mel C finished before 7.00pm and there were two bands due on the other stage and a Danish band on this stage before Meat Loaf was due on at 10.30pm so I went back to my car to dry off and do some work for a couple of hours.

I got back to the main stage just after 9.30pm and easily stood in the second row in front of Randy again…perfect! As they had more time to set up the crew spent almost the whole hour setting the stage - even the Tour Manager walked the ramp to check that it was safe to use! By this time it had stopped raining but I didn’t risk taking my camera just in case we had another downpour.

Meat Loaf came on stage promptly at 10.30pm and IMHO this was a much better gig than Hannover as they all seemed so much more relaxed on stage. This was especially apparent in Kasim as he seemed to take more of a back seat and trust the band to get it right on their own. It was just incredible to see the difference in him! (Kasim was wearing black trousers, a black T-shirt and his patterned padded jacket without his glasses.)

Although I could mainly see Kasim, Randy and Patti again, I could see better over the whole stage so I had more idea of what happened (plus it wasn’t all as new to me). Tonight Randy walked out on his own to start Whore before all the others joined him and I noticed that even Mark Alexander (the keyboardist) played guitar at the front. Now I know the name of the song, occasionally I could recognise the word “Whore” but I still couldn’t make out many of the other words.

The set list was almost the same as in Hannover (other than Frying Pan moving) but the show was slightly longer (90 minutes compared to 85). Life Is A Lemon seemed a bit longer tonight and they had the recorded “ahhs” at the beginning which I don’t remember from Hannover.

They kept Black Betty quite short again but tonight I noticed that Kasim didn’t sing Meat Loaf’s parts with him. For Black Betty both the girls put on guitars to play. Patti’s outfit this tour is quite dramatic as she wears a tight red and black basque thing and shiny black trousers with chains across the front. She really has so much energy and even when she wasn’t singing at times she was singing the words away from the microphone - she really seems to enjoy herself on stage! She’s also had a couple of blonde streaks put into the front of her hair.

As DeadRinger For Love started Meat Loaf called out for some money again and I noticed that Patti caught CC’s attention and then went over to her and obviously planned to get the money off him. At the end of the song Patti called CC down to where Meat Loaf was and started snogging him while CC looked for the money. They then switched, Patti got the money out of his back pocket and then the two girls walked off and split the money between them. They then attempted to throw it into the audience but as there was a quite a breeze (we were by the beach after all!) it flew out about three inches and came straight back to them again!

Instead of the lesbian comment, Meat Loaf called out “Out of the frying pan and into the fire” which was the cue for them to start playing that song. I’ve seen this song performed lots of times live on stage and this was one of my favourite performances ever! Thankfully it was an extended version with Meat Loaf even slowing it right down at one point and all the audience obviously loved it too!

Next we had You Took The Words Right Outta My Mouth which didn’t go on for too long before the other new song of the tour so far, Only When I Feel. This song really grew on me with the second time of hearing it and after hearing the recorded Wuthering Heights version, they play a much improved live arrangement of the song! (It was also amusing to notice that it’s only the second concert in of the tour and Kasim obviously felt confident enough in the band to have a cigarette break during the slow part of this song!)

Next it was All Revved Up and Paradise By The Dashboard Light (with the crew playing the tape as soon as the snogging started!) before it was the sort of encore of Anything For Love and Bat Out Of Hell. Meat Loaf puts on his longer black jacked for AFL and again it was the shortened version. There was a really funny bit in this song as Kasim was standing at his microphone singing the chorus (they repeat it about 6 times) with his eyes closed. What he didn’t realise was that Meat Loaf was standing in front of him watching him and then he reached over and pinched Kasim’s nose which soon made Kasim jump put of wherever he was!

Bat Out Of Hell was just brilliant again tonight. No matter how many times I hear that song, I still love it! At one point Kasim and Paul Crook went down the ramp together and played there while Meat Loaf stood beside Randy with his arm around his neck. Apparently it was getting a bit nippy on stage (as they were higher up) as a couple of times Kasim blew into his hands and during BOOH Patti put on a long woollen coat thing. This then gave her a really dramatic silhouette against the back drop during the motorcycle part!

They then left the stage but the crowd called the Danish equivalent of “Encore!” so they came back and played a great performance of Mercury Blues - they do that hand shaking thing again which I still don’t understand!

They left the stage at exactly midnight after a really great show. As this was the end of the three day festival they then had a brief 5 minute firework display (I was hoping to see “Don’t forget Kasim’s solo gig in Manchester on 4th July” written up in the fireworks but sadly they didn’t!) before it was time to leave the Skive Beach Party!

As I said before I preferred this gig to Hannover as they seemed more relaxed, especially Kasim! Although he always seemed aware of what was going on around him on stage (really shouting a few times for the crew to “Turn Paul down” at the beginning of Whore) he seemed to have more fun on stage tonight. At one point he was doing a bit of head-banging in the centre of stage with Paul and at another did “the bump” with Patti!

Roll on Bonn on Monday……!

The set lists and reviews thread on the Meat Loaf UK Fan Club website about this gig.

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