Ruth Eckhard Hall
The two things I'll remember about this concert was the enthusiastic welcome Meat and the band received and the great, sensible questions that were asked!
Before Meat even walked on stage the disc jockey had whipped up loads of applause and several times lots of people gave Meat a standing ovation for some songs!
After the usual great opening the first question was someone asking why the bridge (which was his favourite part) in Two Outta Three Ain't Bad was omitted from the programme StoryTellers. Meat explained that it was due to trying to fit his songs into the six minute breaks between advertisement segments that VH-1 has! They then sang Two Outta Three and that guy sang the last line of the bridge solo!
After "the blackboard song" and For Crying Out Loud, they sang You Took the Words and the piano girl had to be coached by Patti through it! After the initial five people sang on stage it became a free for all to join the Meat Loaf Clearwater / Tampa Bay Pops Choir. One of the security guards was rather officious and refused to let several people pass. Fortunately Meat noticed this and remarked jokingly that he was right not to let them on stage with what they were wearing but that they could come up anyway!
During Hot Patootie Meat suddenly went dashing up one of the end aisles and jived with a lady halfway up and then another on stage!
Someone asked how Out of the Frying Pan came to be written so Meat told the greasy duck in LA story but this time he said that Jim Steinman had drunk six bottles of wine inside of being stoned. For some reason Meat cut the ending of Frying Pan tonight as after one crescendo the band were playing the music ready for the next when he indicated to Kasim to bring the song to a close.
When Meat introduced Damon tonight he announced that he was "Peter's brother" but, of course, very few of us in the audience understood what he meant although the band laughed! Tom appeared to be sporting a new hair style tonight as it was all slicked back - the poor guy always looks so sheepish when Meat announces at EVERY concert that he was only four years old when the album Bat Out of Hell was released! Kasim was back to wearing short sleeves tonight and he just seemed to have so much energy as he was bounding all over the stage! He seems to be coming to the front of the stage more at the last few concerts and went and played his guitar beside Damon for a while again tonight.
The Paradise couple were reasonably passionate tonight but the poor girl got the "Stop right there!" words totally wrong despite being perfect in the rehearsal!
What can I say about Bat Out of Hell? It was wonderful as always! I still miss the inflatable bat but at least it means that the emphasis is now more on Damon when he plays the motorbike guitar solo and he often gets a round of applause for it!
After the (long intro) All Revved Up finale it was so nice to walk outside in just a thin jacket to 70 degree temperatures at 10.30 at night in January!
Meat Loaf was served to 2,000 Monday night. It was a casual setting, as you might imagine, as Ruth Eckerd Hall played host to Meat Loaf, the preposterously bombastic pop singer.
The storytelling sections of the show were successful on several grounds. First, as the evening wore on Meat Loaf came off as an extremely likable fellow, a stand up comedian with few jokes but a distinctive regular-guy personality. He does like to say "that word" a lot, but he's so open-faced and non-sleazy that it didn't seem so offensive.
Then, the storytelling parts break up the songs, which at their best are sharply ironic looks at bad love,and at their worst simply mopy moaning about the same subject. It seems that the later songs (I Would Do Anything for Love...) are mid-tempo pop with synthesizer washes and stupid, loud drumbeats to indicate the pain Meat Loaf is going through. More talking and fewer of these morose ditties is certainly called for.
In the midst of these dreary songs, all penned by Jim Steinman, two non-Steinman tunes stood out like cases of pure pleasure. Warren Zevon's "Lawyers, Guns and Money", and Richard O'Brien's "Hot Patootie" (from Rocky Horror) didn't demand that Meat Loaf bemoan his fate,just that he rock out. These songs (and the earlier Steinman works) seemed to fit his personality more.
He goofs arouind with members of the audience answering questions serious and silly with the same offhand pleasure.
Knowing what the people are looking for, he closed with Paradise by the Dashboard Light and Bat Out of Hell, his two most powerful numbers. Paradise (with strong backgrouind singer Patti Russo) has a sweet sense of irony that makes this tale of teenage love/lust genuinely funny, while Bat simply works on its own terms.
The band (led by Kasim Sulton,former bassist for Todd Rundgren's band Utopia), was crisp and shiny and wow-loud. You would go blind looking for a second's subtlety here, but that's not what Meat Loaf's fans are looking for, and there is no denying the power of the best work presented here.
Thanks to Charlene for providing this review