REVIEW

By Donna Jacobs

MEAT LOAF LIVE AT HYDE PARK 24/7/02

1999 seemed years ago as I prepared to get into Meat Loaf mode again.

Myself, Deb, Kat, Sam, Dave, Jamie and little Jake arrived at Hyde Park about 6.30pm & whilst leaving Deb & Dave outside the gates with the 2 J's Kat, Sam and I went in to find our front row seats. Once we had found them (pretty easy really..just keep heading towards the stage till you hit the barrier lol) we found that we were sitting alongside various members of the MLUKFC, some of whom we hadn't seen since the 99 tour and booksignings ! We decided that it would be a good idea to locate the bar and fill up with liquid refreshments i.e. alcohol to last throughout the show (or in Sams case Coca Cola)!!

While we were at the bar the support band "The Real People" came on. They seemed an average sort of pop band but I didn't really take much notice of them as I never got back to my seat till 1/2 way through their set & even then I was more interested in looking at both wings of the stage where various members of the band kept appearing.

It was shortly after the end of their set that Deb joined us after making sure Dave, Jamie & Jake were ok for the evening :-) 

Kasim Sulton

Patti Russo

Meat Loaf

Kasim Sulton

Don’t Hold Me Back

Sacrifice

At 7.45ish Kasim Sulton was announced & walked on stage to take position on a stool centre stage .He informed the crowd that he was Meats bass player & one of the "friends" on this Meat Loaf & Friends tour. He said he hoped we would enjoy it & started by singing Don’t Hold Me Back from the “Basement Tapes”. Before launching into his 2nd song Before She Was Gone which is from his new album “Quid Pro Quo” he said it was the 1^st time he had ever sung solo outside the US & that it was quite an experience to play in front of 11,000 people. During this song he was joined by Mark Alexander on keyboards & John Miceli on drums. His last song Sacrifice is also from the new album, He had to swap guitars for this but had problems when he found it wasn’t tuned correctly. He made a comment about “poor workmen blaming their tools” & thanked the crowd for being patient saying “nobody’s going woo whoa come on” to which a few of the crowd shouted back ”come on”. Kasim replied ”thank you very much I appreciate it & now I feel at home” before playing Sacrifice and thanking the crowd at the end who gave him a well-deserved ovation. This was the first time I had ever heard Kasim sing solo live & thought it was great!

Patti Russo

Tie Your Mother Down

Just Not Enough

After a few minutes the whole band came on for Patti’s set. She launched into a great rocking version of Tie Your Mother Down & followed this with what she described as her never ending demo Madeline .The last song she sang was called Just Not Enough. Never having heard her sing solo before without Meat Loaf I thought she was great & had such a strong rock voice. Her set was excellent & really set the mood for the main event to come ~ namely the big man himself MEAT LOAF !!!

Meat Loaf

Life Is A Lemon

Tear Me Down

Dead Ringer For Love

Paradise By The Dashboard Light

After a couple of minutes there came the sound of drumbeats & maracas as Meat appeared left of stage, periodically thumping a big drum centre of stage & pacing furiously up & down. Shortly afterwards he launched into Life Is A Lemon with the band joining him on stage a while later with Patti, Pearl & Mark banging on big drums and the remainder on their respective instruments. This song grows on me the more I hear it & the band play it with such ferocity & passion.

Next up was Crazy Like A Mercury from the forthcoming album “Testify” .By this stage Meat had a few bras tied to his mic stand which had been there from the beginning & which would be added to during the course of the show. This song was quite rocky but not too heavy.

Lawyers, Guns & Money was next which is a great song & one of my favs from the last tour namely due to the “whoos & yeahs”. Unfortunately they neglected to do those bits tonight (maybe they didn’t realise I was going to be there lol)

The next song was the 2nd “Testify” song in the set called Tear Me Down. In the middle of the song Patti & Pearl stood at either side of the stage with placards as a female voice recalls the story of the Alamo & how Texas became the biggest state. It goes on to say that Texas was bigger & larger than life and there was none bigger than little Marvin Aday, who was so big that his daddy called him Meat Loaf who grew into a big man with a big voice. This was the better song of the two from the album but if all the songs on it are like these two I can’t wait to buy it !!!

The more familiar song of Dead Ringer For Love was up next with the usual routines that go with it apart from the blokes vs. girls part! Then again if they had the same routines as last time it would be like being in a time warp lol

All Revved Up was next and was pretty good as usual.

This was followed by the No.1 hit I’d Do Anything For Love with Damon performing the opening brilliantly before being joined by Mark on keyboards & John on drums. Meat stood centre stage at the mic & signalled the crowd to quieten down to get the mood right for the song. As he went to sing there were shouts from the crowd to which he said “shut the f*** up”. There were more cheers from the crowd & he said “no!” and went on to berate a fella in the audience telling him it was his “f****** fault” & “everything that happens in the world from now on is your f****** fault”. He started once again & stopped saying “don’t push me” to the crowd. A third time he asked Mark to start & after cheers from the crowd announced “I think I f****** got them” to Mark. He asked the crowd if they wanted to hear the song & after much cheering & screaming gave a brilliant performance of it.

The last song in this part of the set was the classic but rather tame version of Paradise By The Dashboard Light. Meat started by telling us that he knew this was London & we were sophisticated but he also knew this was the “f****** rock n roll capital of the f****** world” & not to “speak unless we’re spoken to” He was gonna see just how much we got by raising his arms higher & higher with the crowd getting louder & louder. They started the song with Meat informing us he never even had a PA when he started & travelled round with a mandolin (yeah right!!!!).The usual antics accompanied this song with the play-by-play bit speech & Meat fondling Patti in the centre of the stage, although this wasn’t as theatrical as the previous tours. It ended with the usual argument & f**** you’s. At this point the band left the stage.

Acoustic

2 Outta 3 Ain’t Bad

 Six white stools were brought to the front of the stage as Meat asked the cameraman to pick up a few bras that had been thrown onto the stage. Meat went on to calculate that there were 7,000 women in the audience & that half of them weren’t wearing bras, (to any women reading this ~ which half were you? ME ~ now that would be telling..DEB ~ don’t say a word!) , That made 3500 wearing bras! He tied 2 to his mic stand saying that one of them fitted him when he cross-dresses lol. He went on to introduce John Golden on guitar, Damon La Scott on guitar, John the hammer Miceli on drums, Mark Alexander on keyboards & standing in the wings with the hat on his daughter Amanda. More bra banter followed before he introduced Kasim who got the job of tying the bras to the stand. Meat told the ladies to keep the bras coming & let their breasts blow in the wind & be free lol. The disclaimer about bad language followed before he introduced Patti Russo & last but not least his oldest daughter Pearl. He brought Amanda out to sing with them & she sat next to Pearl as they sang 2 Outta 3.Meat told us he was having a great time & hoped we were, with the crowd cheering I think he got the answer he wanted !! Kasim stood up & conducted the crowd during the participation part.

Meat then introduced the next song I’d Lie For You as a song that he & Patti did. With Mark starting it off Meat got 2 lines in then stopped after apparently hearing a woman screaming the name of a non meat song. He then went into what now transpires to be a pre-arranged improvisation with him saying he wasn’t the singer of the song she shouted & asked a fella to show her the ticket stub clearly marked “Meat Loaf”. She said it was her birthday so he accused her of drinking too much & using it as her excuse (sounds a perfectly reasonable excuse to me lol). He found out her name was Bevers & instructed John Golden to play Mony Mony just for her !! As he started singing Meat informed the audience that between each line they had to sing”Hey hey, what say, get laid, get f*****”, which would have been fine if John hadn’t had problems with his mic. Meat helped him out by loaning him his mic while George the soundman was in a state of panic (apparently !!! ).When it all came together, the mic working & the audience joining in it sounded very funny !!!

With the intro to You Took The Words Meat again told Patti ~ as in the previous tour ~ that he wouldn’t starve without her before doing his “Meg Ryan in When Harry met Sally” impression with Patti doing a good rendition of it as well. This was another good performance with the audience singing along & clapping.

Bat Out Of Hell

The awesome BOOH was next, played brilliantly by Damon on guitar but alas there was no Bob the Bat this year although that didn’t spoil it too much. This always gets the crowd going wild & dancing like maniacs!

Encore

Johnny B Goode

The band came to the front, took a bow & left the stage with the crowd shouting & screaming for more until Meat came back on saying that this was the first time in 15 years he’s done an encore (not too sure about that one!!). The rest of the band returned to the stage to play out with a great version of Johnny B Goode with John Golden & Damon playing side by side. Meat left the stage & left the band to finish off the song & what a great song to finish on.

Anyone taking this review for their own pages without prior permission from Deb or myself will be “hunted down & shot like a dog” (as Meat once said)

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