Review by SueW:
The Hollywood Hard Rock Seminole Hotel and Casino is an amazing place! It’s just north of Miami and has Rock and Roll Memorabilia over all it’s walls. We were staying up on the ninth floor and even by the lift up there we had a couple of gold discs on the wall!

The side of the hotel:

The venue was only opened earlier this year and was larger than the last couple over here as it seats 5,500 people so it looked like a mini arena. For some reason they didn’t have any screens so the people at the back can’t have had a very good view. It was also BITTERLY cold in there - even the two Floridians sitting near me remarked about it! The security just inside the venue had some strange ideas about security! The guy insisted on me taking my handbag off my shoulder so he could look inside the area that zips plus the two side pockets but totally ignored my bag in my other hand! One of my friends had bought some merchandise at her Meet and Greet and when she went back in they told her that she couldn’t take the carrier bag in! Another friend had a briefcase with her so they said that the carrier bag had to be put into the briefcase which they didn’t even check!! There were also signs saying no cameras and I was asked if I had one and yet they didn’t stop people from taking photos inside!

Unfortunately this was a venue when they kept the bar open during the concert and one guy next to me went in and out six times. As there were free seats between us he also bought 4 of his friends in later and then two of them got on their cell phones to yell at people about where they were sitting (the 4th row)! Surprisingly two people in my row left the concert during You Took The Words.

Unlike the comments below I thought that Meat Loaf’s voice sounded quite good tonight (or maybe I’ve just got used to how he sounds nowadays). Certainly he seemed to be enjoying himself on stage. In fact my one main memory of these concerts will be about how much all the band seemed to be having fun on stage at these concerts!

Kasim is the one person on stage who wears the largest selection of clothes (people like Randy and Paul seem to wear virtually the same clothes at each concert) and tonight he was wearing a bright purple shirt (which really suits his colouring). Unfortunately because of the way he holds his bass a lot of his shirts cover his right hand so that only his fingers show! He’s also unfortunately cultivating some moss around his face which I think makes him look older! Kasim received a massive round of applause and loads of cheers (especially from some girls just behind me) when he was introduced on stage tonight!

Tonight I thought that Kasim had almost moved onto the right hand side of the stage as he came across to Paul’s side so many times (which was brilliant as that was the side that I was sitting too!). During Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad Patti moves across to the right and Kasim did too so he stood with Patti on that podium while they played that amazing long musical part which is one of my favourite sections of the set.

Tonight Meat Loaf again mentioned the Hurricane Katrina benefit concert in Savannah on Saturday and urged us all to buy tickets even if we won’t be able to attend - as he said, people in Florida know all about how much hurricanes can destroy people’s lives.

As I was on the right side of the stage it gave me a chance to see CC more than I have at most concerts and she’s easily the best of the girls that I’ve seen in that role. She seems to be taking a leaf out of Patti’s book and never stops moving to the music, even when there are no lights on her.

It was also really good to get a chance to see Mark more clearly in action on the keyboards. Someone who bought a $400 platinum package and went on the backstage tour explained to me something about the piano not being a real piano on stage but when Mark plays it the notes are formed somewhere else (or something!) but however it works, he really is an amazing keyboard player. I think it’s sad that both him and John Miceli on the drums are hardly featured on this tour as they both do such a brilliant job.

Other than moving one song to later in the set and the addition of Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad, the set list hasn’t changed at all since the first concert on this tour in Hannover, Germany. Thankfully though every concert is slightly different…or at least for anyone who watches Kasim it is! Other than Meat Loaf (and possibly Patti Russo) Kasim is the person who moves around the stage the most and tonight a couple of times he even walked around the back of the drum riser to get back to his microphone as he had moved across to the right. Once on his way back to the left, Meat loaf blocked his path (deliberately) and then when Kasim moved further to the front of the stage, Meat Loaf moved too which was fun to watch!

Roll on Savannah on Saturday!

The side of the hotel:

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