State Theatre
With horrendous memories of a Wembley concert being cancelled despite Meat starting a sound check, I was so relieved that tonight's concert did go ahead okay - these last few days have really brought back to me how much I'm enjoying this tour!
Meat only made one reference to his illness, just as he was about to start For Crying Out Loud and that was to say that he'd "had the flu for the last ten days" but that he would try to sing as well as he could. His voice actually sounded remarkably good for only having had six days off. He did struggle slightly in For Crying Out Loud (maybe he paused for dramatic effect but I think it was to catch his breath) and he said that only Tom was to play at the end so there was less depth of sound and background vocals for him to sing against. Other than that I only noticed that he omitted I'd Lie for You and Rock and Roll Dreams which was probably to pace himself.
After the usual three song beginning (at the start of Life is a Lemon, I think only Kasim's microphone was working so we could only hear him sing "I want my money back" which sounded great to me!) the concert started slowly as people were mainly asking him questions about his weight, acting and anything but songs so when someone mentioned Jim Steinman's Bad For Good album, Meat decided to sing Frying Pan as he likes that song from the album. Meat asked one lady why she'd come to the concert and she replied that it was for "nostalgic" reasons!! She was later the piano woman and then was replaced by her husband with Patti doing the refrains instead of Meat.
Poor Meat really struggled with some people who got the microphone as they just wanted to tell him how great they thought he was or how close they now are with their sister - really! When Meat asked one girl what she wouldn't do for love she replied that she wouldn't sleep with her boyfriend until they were married! Later he asked her whether she used the algebra that she'd learnt at school (to lead into Anything For Love) and she insisted that she did as she was in college! He just couldn't win with her!
One lady asked to speak to Kasim so Meat just leaned back on the piano! She said that she'd first seen him with Todd Rundgren in Utopia and then they had a conversation about Todd but i'm not repeating what Meat brought up! Meat said that they were at present in discussions about Todd producing Bat III but then laughed so I'm not sure if he was serious or not.
The Paradise couple tonight were quite tame (just innocent kissing) but at least they didn't need any encouragement to start!
