Review: Meat Loaf at The O2

Review of Meat Loaf at The O2, Dublin on December 18th 2010

Review by Aidan Cuffe

Tonight was my first chance to catch Meat Loaf live. Twice before I had tickets for him and he cancelled and once he played Cork and I was at Glastonbury. It felt like it wasn’t meant to be that one of my musical heroes would manage to evade me in a live scenario, there aren’t many of those left as I work my way through the list.

Arriving at the venue at around 8pm I was disappointed to find the support band Pearl were on their last song, I only caught one song and it was catchy but I can’t pass comment on a band I’ve not seen properly, I’ll catch them next time they come to Ireland. The stage setup was sorted quickly, a staggered tier of drum kits, platforms and a white piano, giant skulls placed in the four corners of the stage.

The crowd raise a massive cheer as the man himself appears, ever the showman he milks every bit of it, clearly revelling in the capacity crowd. Wasting no time he opens the show with ‘Hot Patootie‘, with the Rocky Horror scene playing out in the background. Voice as strong as ever, this was going to be a good show.

Very few acts play their biggest song early, each for their own reason. Meat Loaf however isn’t a subscriber as he burst into ‘Bat Out Of Hell‘ as the third song of the night. Energetic, frenetic, this was every bit I was hoping it would be live. The kind of song that I’ve been waiting 10 years to hear live since I was first introduced to his music.

Loaf then remarked “If you ever play in a band and decide to play Bat Out Of Hell and decide to play it as your third song then let me tell you, it will make you feel fucking 63 years old. Fuck”

At this point we are joined by another member of the band, the pianist playing at the white piano fully decked out in white suit, lending a degree of class to the show. Meat Loaf then discusses how The Point Theatre has changed, how he remembers the columns of the venue when he was here before and that the new venue is impressive. He then repeats himself and then says ‘What the hell am I talking about’ the surrounding crowd like us were laughing at this ramble, intentional or not.

He then introduces the fact he is going to play a trio of songs from ‘Hang Cool Teddy Bear’ with Helicopter sounds kicking in, search lights flying around the crowd and the sound of bombs dropping and exploding and then proceeds to run through three of my favourite songs off the album, the man knows how to pick em. He plays ‘Peace On Earth’ the opening track on the album, ‘Living On The Outside‘ a real upbeat class loaf style track and then ‘Los Angeloser‘ the lead single off the album.

Next up on the amazing setlist is one of my all time favourite songs, ‘You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth‘ which Meat Loaf sings flawlessly, spine chilling vocals and definitely one of the highlights of the night. The new album was dipped into again with ‘Song Of Madness‘ followed by him stating that he feels like he is on acid, the guitarist guitar was melting and he was changing colours, he then tells a story about having to read Shakespeare to his class, so he read it while on acid, whilst reading it he had a revelation, that when Shakespeare wrote it, he definitely was on acid too.

The craziness continued with ‘Rock & Roll Dreams Come Through‘ followed by the legendary ‘I’d do Anything For Love‘ where he is joined by Patricia Russo. Goosebumps! Her vocals literally could blow the roof off the place, they are a well suited duo as Meat Loaf doesn’t have any problem keeping up with her vocally. Two amazing voices singing and amazing song.

Meat Loaf again engages the crowd in some banter explaining that Jim Steinman once was bet that he couldn’t write a song that was simpler and better than ‘I Want You, I Need You, I Love You’ by Elvis Presley, Jim said your right, but I can write this – ‘I want you, I need you, but there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you, now don’t be sad, cause two out of three aint bad’ and then kicks into that song with the vigour of a younger man. Halfway through the song Meat Loaf uses himself as a human volume switch raising his arm to the crowd to which they responded with a huge prolonged cheers and stopping as he moved his arm down and the band kicked back in. The control he exuded over the crowd was nothing short of breathtaking.

Last song before the fake leaving was ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light‘ which as you would expect was full of theatrics and wordplay with his female co-conspirator Patti Russo with full on Meatloaf asking her if she wanted him to whip out his big surprise, Russo asking the crowd should we let him, Meat Loaf running to the side of the stage and grabbing a giant penis gun with condom over it saying he’d be arrested if he whipped the real thing out but this is a replica of it, to which Russo wittily quips ‘Is that why they call you meat?’

The penis then shoots T-shirts out into the crowd with the expected heave of the crowd towards the direction of the falling shirts, They finish off the showpiece that was ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’ by introducing the band before leaving the stage. The guitarist stayed on stage playing a solo which sounded a bit like the riff from Joe Bonamassa’s ‘Woke Up Dreaming’ as Meat Loaf and crew returned to the stage  after only moments off it. The bust out ‘BoneYard‘ followed by the band playing around with what sounded like pieces of ‘Proud Mary’ and the solo from ‘FreeBird’ as the band showed off their talent.

They finished up this epic show with two more classics ‘All Revved Up With No Place To Go‘ and ‘Dead Ringer For Love‘ which end an absolutely unbelievable show which confirmed my belief that Meat Loaf is one of the single greatest showmen in the music business. Crowd were in his pocket from start to finish, responded to his every whim and sang each and every word back to him.

If you can get a ticket for the Belfast show tonight, don’t even hesitate, buy a ticket and see him live. I’m just sorry this is only the first time I’ve seen him.

Setlist

Hot Patootie (Rocky Horror)
If It Ain’t Broke, Break It
Bat Out Of Hell
Peace On Earth
Living On The Outside
Los Angeloser
Took the words right out my mouth
Song of Madness
Rock & Roll Dreams Come Through
I’d Do Anything For Love
Two out of three ain’t bad
Paradise by the dashboard light
Boneyard
All Revved Up With No Place To Go
Dead Ringer For Love