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Warrior Whore Life Is A Lemon Black Betty DeadRinger For Love Out Of The Frying Pan (And Into The Fire) You Took The Words Right Outta My Mouth Only When I Feel All Revved Up Paradise By The Dashboard Light
Anything For Love Mercury Blues Hair of the Dog Tour – 2005. A set of shortened, almost commercial radio versions of some of the songs tonight, quite different to the CHSIB Tour. As the national boundaries of continental Europe vanished, in true, slick, professional style, The Neverland Express (Kasim Sulton, Mark Alexander, Paul Crook, Randy Flowers, Patti Russo, CC and John Miceli) delivered a non-stop 90+ minute performance to a capacity, truly appreciative, international audience of German, Dutch, French & even British fans! Starting shortly after 8pm, Randy, Paul AND Mark Alexander (he really played too!) sported their guitars and announced Meat Loaf to centre stage. Rock intro transformed into the MSO style version of Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back. Thereafter followed an unusual choice of cover, 'Oh Black Betty'. Nevertheless, the sea of dedicated fans including a contingent of the Dutch Meat Loaf Fan Club and, perhaps, the entire German ‘Meat Loaf on Tour’ Fans waved and cheered as Meat Loaf moved back and forth across the stage! Song after song rolled out, barely a pause between them. A funky slower-than-the-original version of All Revved Up With No Place To Go, Out Of The Frying Pan (And Into The Fire), Deadringer For Love, and then You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth which had the audience in fits of laughter at one point when Meat’s microphone stand fell over and rather than picking it up, with belly to the floor, he lay beside it crooned out the lyrics "And then you took the words right out of my mouth, oh it must have been while you were kissing me". Interestingly, Meat chose to perform one of the tracks from the long awaited Bat Out Of Hell III Album to, what I felt was, a rather mixed reaction from the crowd. Mark Alexander transferred to the feature KORG Grand Piano to open I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Wont Do That). This was, perhaps, the most varied of all the Jim Steinman written tracks performed on the night. The entire intro was replaced by an opening which closely followed the song’s second chorus. Whilst I was surprised by the choice of edit (I have to say that I like every second of the 12 minute epic) the audience didn’t appear too perturbed and I have to say that Patti Russo and Meat Loaf captivated, spectacularly, the emotion behind each and every word of the final lyrics. It was, for me, reminiscent of being at an English Soccer Match listening to the audience as they co-sang every one of Patti’s lines! On with the, now trademark, Red and White Leather Jacket and cue Paradise By The Dashboard Light! The usual camaraderie between Meat and Patti, especially when she knocked a bunch of red roses from his hand and slugged him in the stomach calling him a "F*t F**k", went down hilariously well. Even the musicians on stage laughed! The main show ended with Bat out of Hell, everyone singing, sparklers waving. The encore was Mercury Blues. Paul managed to break one of his guitar strings during an instrumental moment but Randy quickly stepped in and filled the void. Guitar swapped and apparently undeterred, Paul was cheered back on stage moments later and finished a series of 12-bar wah-wah driven solos, incited by Meat’s single-fingered salute! All in all, this gig served to confirm everything I have said about Meat Loaf…there really is nothing like seeing him live! The inclusion of a track from BOOH III has left me with no real emotion. I have never automatically attached to a Steinman Song on first play-through but they usually grow on me! I guess that not having heard the album version yet gives me nothing in sound to reference to. On stage, everyone performing seemed a little ill-at-ease and each musician was watching each other carefully for visual signals to ensure that the timing was tight. The musicianship was nevertheless excellent and inspiring to me. I don’t think this was the best show of Meat’s I have ever seen. My last time seeing Meat was at the NEC in Birmingham (Dec03) but this is the start of a new tour and come what may, the audience loved it. I would say that the show seemed somehow shorter than I remembered from last time and I prefer the live versions of the songs with their long-full-bodied-intros and thin, piano-driven spatial moments for Meat to more interact with the audience. (Maybe something for Meat to think about IMHO ) I am looking forward to my next show at Blickling Hall, Norfolk on July 15. Keep Rocking Guys!
Review by SueW:
I had been warned that this stage wasn’t too high so I was glad that I managed to get into the second “row”. People around me were saying that The Darkness were supposed to have been opening for Meat Loaf but their lead singer is injured so instead there was a very young girl singer fronting a band. They played for about half an hour.
The concert started promptly at 8.00pm with Randy walking on stage to play the intro into Whore.
Kasim is easily going to win "best dressed person on stage" award for the tour (for the 8th Meat Loaf Tour in succession!)! Tonight he was wearing his black trousers and a red long sleeved shirt with loose sleeves. It had a shaped cuff which was fine on his left arm but for his right arm (which is pointing down when he’s playing) it meant that it looked like he just had stumps for fingers showing at the end of his sleeve! For some reason Kasim didn’t have a set list for this concert until about DeadRinger when he was brought one out for him!
Again Kasim played just the one bass all concert (Paul plays about 6 guitars during the set!). It looked like his black bass but the neck part looked slightly different so it may be a different one.
The set list was the same as at Skive and after the show a few fans I was talking to were disappointed that it wasn’t the "full Meaty concert" (as they called it) that they were expecting (as this was the first non-festival gig of the tour). Meat Loaf posted a while back that his insurance company had said that he could only play for an hour and three quarters maximum but this was dead on the hour and a half. People told me before the gig that there is a strict 10.00pm curfew here (as it’s in a residential area) but it was 30 minutes short of that. I think everybody enjoyed the concert for what it was but there was some booing after Mercury Blues when it was obvious that they weren’t coming back again.
I’m not going to write another full review of the concert (and I couldn’t see most of what happened on the right hand side of the stage anyway!) but these are some random musings about the concert:
Roll on Holland on Saturday……!
Comments about Kasim at this concert taken from various messageboards and mailing lists include:
Other websites
Yvonne Bender has added 5 pages of photos of the Bonn gig on Monday (with loads of photos of Kasim) here plus a page of photos of her Meet and Greet with him here.
Some photos by Miriam Jenoch of the Meat Loaf concert in Bonn, Germany on 6th June have been added to the Meat Loaf German Fan Club website. The ones that feature Kasim are:
The German website MeatLoafRocks.de has some photos of this concert on this page. The best shots of Kasim (IMHO) are:
Some photos by Tamara Angeletti of the Meat Loaf concert in Bonn, Germany on 6th June have been added to the Meat Loaf German Fan Club website. The ones that feature Kasim are:
Some photos by Daniel Fiederling of the Meat Loaf concert in Bonn, Germany on 6th June have been added to the Meat Loaf German Fan Club website. The ones that feature Kasim are:
Miss Loud from Holland has some photos of the Meat Loaf concert in Bonn, Germany on 6th June. The ones that feature Kasim are:
Some photos by Susi Hauner of the Meat Loaf concert in Bonn, Germany on 6th June have been added to the Meat Loaf German Fan Club website. The ones that feature Kasim are:
Ceteetje has 100 photos of the Meat Loaf concert in Bonn, Germany last Monday here. The ones that feature Kasim are:
This link to Meat-Loaf.nl has some photos by Bart of the concert in Bonn, Germany that Kasim Sulton played 10 days ago. The ones that feature Kasim are:
This link to Meat-Loaf.nl has some photos by Huupie of the concert in Bonn, Germany that Kasim Sulton played last week. The ones that feature Kasim are:
Werner has added photos of this concert to his website. The ones that feature Kasim are:
The set lists and reviews thread on the Meat Loaf UK Fan Club website about this gig.
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