Unsurprisingly we had the usual instructions by the disc jockeys (that we were not to request anything but could ask questions about anything) before Meat Loaf came on to reiterate that absolutely no requests were allowed or that we would be punished by the audience shouting "F**k You" at the culprit. Although he didn't come on stage until 8.20 he found some empty seats in the third row and said that he would set-up those latecomers but in the event they never showed. He then gave the usual speech about having recorded 114 songs and the band knowing only 12 before bringing out the "Meat Loaf Let's Cheat a Song if we Can" book and introducing Home by Now / No Matter What by explaining that he'd recorded it two years ago in London, England with Jim Steinman (the usual pause for much deserved applause) and that it was one of his three favourite tracks. He then sang along to the recorded track (alongside John's drumming and Tom starting it on the keyboards) in front of the "angry forest" backdrop that I've now seen so many times!
They then went straight into the "tribal drumming" version of Life is a Lemon (I hope they keep that beginning on the next tour) and we had some more lawyer jokes before Lawyers, Guns and Money.
Meat then got a young boy of about 10 up on stage to demonstrate an American Football move but as he (and I!) didn't know what Meat was talking about, he got his father up for the demonstration (it was while he was saying again that he had no musical influences while he was growing up but that his influences were mainly sportsmen). Meat then said that the boy could keep the football as a souvenir until Damon intervened to say that it was HIS football that a famous football star had signed! Instead Meat allowed him to chose three merchandising items and sent someone out to get a football for him too!
They then sang Two Outta Three (with the audience singing just the last
line of the bridge again) and For Crying Out Loud (with the reduced
background vocals again - Meat even indicated to Kasim to get the band
to keep the sound down at one point as his voice just couldn't seem to
handle the strong vocals). Thankfully Kasim seemed to be back to his
energetic self!
Next Meat got a girl up on the piano for the Hot Summer Night speech but she didn't know the words so he tried another and another! Eventually he was desperately asking for anyone who knew the words properly to get up on stage! The girl he opted for was only thirteen years old which he made a few comments about as she was asking "Will he give me his mouth?" etc! And for the FIFTH time on this tour Susan from the UK Fan Club made a triumphant appearance as part of the Meat Loaf Miami Pops Choir!
Nobody asked about it but Meat got Tony to drag the blackboard out and
they sang Anything for Love.
Earlier in the concert somebody had complained that it was his 39th
birthday and that he only had one more year before he'd be too old to
live so Meat aked all those who were over 40 and still enjoyed life to
stand up! Loads did (including Kasim!)! At this point in the concert,
Meat was chatting to a young boy and amongst other things, Meat asked
him which year he was born in so he replied "1988" and then asked back
which year Meat was born in! I don't think I've ever seen Meat and the
band laugh so much! Kasim even folded in half as he was laughing so
much!
My seat for this concert was in the fourth row but due to a big stack of speakers, when they sat down all I could see of Kasim was his knees (I couldn't see Patti, Pearl or Ray at all) so I wandered around the theatre a bit so that I could take some photos further back as most of my seats on this tour have been at the front. It was while I was standing at the back that the Paradise couple were called up so I noticed that they were both sitting together which I found suspicious! I asked one of the disc jockeys and he said that it was pure coincidence and that they had both been randomly selected which i found even more suspicious (some of us had already noticed that since a different guy had taken over the "random selection" process in Florida all the Paradise couples had suddenly been better looking)!
Tonight in Paradise (the couple were adequate but the girl seemed more
bothered about keeping the towels around her waist in place than
kissing) there was a slight twist as after Meat and Patti had sung the
"Praying for the end of time" part of the song, Meat swaggered over to
the Paradise couple and started waving to the girl as he always does
but tonight she refused his advances and the guy threatened him which
was amusing to us who knew the plot!
Next they sang Bat Out of Hell as brilliant as ever (but I still miss
the inflatable bat!) followed by All Revved Up (with the long intro) as
the encore. During the musical part, Kasim again went over to Damon and
they stood playing their guitars back to back for quite a while but
tonight they were going up and down too which was great to watch!
Lemon sounded better than ever but was shorter than before (no I'm the greatest guitarist competition) and I liked the Lawyer track but the rest were ballads. Nice to hear Crying Out Loud live.
He said that this was the best band that he'd played with but I disagree. Patti, Kasim and John (he wops those skins) do well but the guy on lead guitar lacks Pat's stage prescence (you need more than groin thrusting moves on stage) and the guy who took over from Kas on the keyboards has even less personality.
Amusing but not worth $58 to hear Meat talk for three hours.
