Meat Loaf
Theatre Mogador
Paris, France
June 8th 1978
Sad news this week that Meat Loaf has passed away aged 74.
This is a remastered audience recording
although I'm not sure I have improved it much.
For a 70s cassette capture it is bearable but don't expect super quality sound :)
There is a splice in the middle of 'Paradise'
presumably where our intrepid taper had to flip
due to it's unforeseeable 27 minute plus duration.
I saw the show in Manchester just four days earlier.
ZAA was the front row and we had the middle seats.
They took my Meat and left me with the Loaf!
As you can see the gig was rescheduled.
I feel sorry for whoever was given the task
of writing the revised date on around 2000 tickets by hand.
Bob and Bruce Kulick were great in the twin guitar role.
The intro was really kitsch/funny.
Jim Steinman walked on stage in leather biker gear
including the biggest gauntlets you can imagine.
Like something you'd wear to handle toxic waste.
He begins banging the piano.
(It's impossible for him to actually play anything}
The gauntlets are removed to reveal skin-tight leather gloves.
Jim can now play a chord.
With elaborate finesse, each finger is tugged
until these gloves are removed to expose yet another pair.
This time they are white cotton like historians might
don when studying an ancient document.
Jim's playing improves.
These cotton-jobs are also flamboyantly discarded.
At last we get to see his bare hands.
He turns to the piano and they kick into Bat out of Hell.
Meat arrives on stage in good time for the opening lyric.
He wasn't the greatest singer but it was a brilliant and memorable concert.
There was no merchendise for sale.
A big poster of the album cover was in the foyer.
They had put it really high up but I watched a group of lads
form a human pyramid so one of them could get it.
I saw the guy with it rolled up part way through the show.
So I sidled up to him and asked if he would consider selling it.
He was initially reluctant until I offered him £5 which he accepted.
Had it on my bedroom wall for years.
regards
Titus
Disc 1
01 Great Boleros of Fire
02 Bat out of Hell
03 You Took the Words Right out of My Mouth
(Hot Summer Night)/Wasted Youth
04 All Revved Up With No Place to Go
Disc 2
01 Paradise by the Dashboard Light
02 Johnny B. Goode
03 River Deep, Mountain High
04 Two out of Three ain't Bad
Thanks for the story ! Appreciated. I still have a poster from Bob Dylan 's historic concert in Avignon, took me an hour to scratch it away from the wall. Good memories anyhow. Heard many years later about the deadly disaster at the start of the concert as we only noticed a 20 minutes electricity power shortage. No one informed the public of what happened and the show had to go on...
ReplyDeleteCheers Derek, I had to google the Dylan gig. Two died I read
Delete