| Loaf Concert Review | |
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Jacqueline 11:46 am UTC 03/01/07 |
| http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=2d577eeb-8a10-4ea1-a142-319f71c862eb&k=32223 Review: Meat Loaf gives 'em what they came for But he sure wasn't taking any guff Adrian Chamberlain Times Colonist Thursday, March 01, 2007 CREDIT: Darren Stone, Times Colonist Legendary rock balladeer Meat Loaf performs his magnum opus, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, with Aspen Miller at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre last night. Who: Meat Loaf (with guest Marion Raven) Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre When: Wednesday night Rating: 4 1/2 (out of five) Meat Loaf didn’t wait long to give 4,300 Victorians what they’d came for. Sure, we all know Mr. Loaf has spawned a couple of Bat Out of Hell sequels. But what most were waiting for Wednesday night was Meat’s 1977 magnum opus from the first album: Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Perhaps sensing our impatience, Mr. Loaf kindly dished out the main course as his second tune. And did the crowd — peppered with 50-somethings — care if 59-year-old Meat looked, well, slightly pervy doing the dirty dance with a pretty young back-up singer dressed in the teeniest cheerleader outfit known to man? Did they care that, during the comedic baseball announcer routine in which the cheerleader is supposed to be playing hard to get, she leapt up and straddled Meat like those reunion scenes in Trading Spouses? Nah. Still, this paean to teenaged lust didn’t make a heckuva lot of sense in the first place. So we grooved on Mr. Loaf’s horn-dog pleading and breast-beating-belting, regardless. Paradise is one of greatest black velvet paintings in the history of rock, and in concert it worked pretty well despite its monumental goofiness — and despite the bassy, muffled sound. (To be fair, I was seated way, way back in the nose-bleed section, so maybe the sound down below was OK.) Meat Loaf’s style of rock hasn’t changed much from 1977. Even then, it had a dated quality. Ignoring the rumblings of new wave and punk, oblivious to the popularity of disco, Meat and songwriter/svengali Jim Steinman concocted a style of operatic rock-kitsch that owes its greatest debt to Broadway musical theatre. But while other purveyors of art-rock-and/or-metal-influenced music have joined Larry Gowan in the Rock Hall of Bombastic Ossification, Meat Loaf continues to thrive after a fashion. His do-or-die protestations of amore and blood-’n’-guts existential angst seem somehow endearing because... well, it’s hard to say. In Victoria, his voice certainly didn’t sound as powerful as on record. Can it be that his intense yet blubbery posing has a vulnerability that’s oddly captivating because it connects with our own blubbery, vulnerable qualities? Mind you, Meat wasn’t taking any guff on Wednesday night. When the audience didn’t sing along with sufficient gusto to You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth, he halted the band and demanded that we audition the chorus for him. My side of the arena didn’t come up to snuff. “You people! Are you too good to be doing what the rest of the people are doing?” bellowed Mr. Loaf. It was sort of scary, actually. “I don’t give a damn! You are going to sing!” So we did. Even me. That Meat Loaf is one intense dude. The night was heavy on the Bat albums. The first set included Out of the Frying Pan (And Into the Fire), I’d Do Anything for Love and Objects in the Rearview Mirror May Appear Close Than They Are. The second set delved into Bat III territory, starting with The Monster Is Loose. (Note: Due to deadline considerations, the reviewer left before the concert ended.) | |
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