Two nights in a row at this New Hampshire Lakes-region locale makes me start to feel my age! Guess that could be said of most of the audience, too, albeit a little younger than the previous night's CS&N audience, with far fewer children in attendance, too. Arrive early at Meadowbrook, and you get a prime parking spot with quick after-show egress, and a chance to tailgate party before the show. For those who prefer a more formal meal, a catered buffet dinner is available as part of a ticket package, but my wife Lori and I like to grill up some food and have a libation or two with the other fans in the parking lot. For this show, we were early enough to hear most of the sound check, too!

The souvenir stand was doing a roaring business before the show, selling $35 tshirts, and autographed copies of Bat Out of Hell and Kasim Sulton's latest CD, Quid Pro Quo. It was obvious that the venue was running the stand - the sign for Kas's CD said "Kazam's CD"!! We were hoping for a quick opening set from Kas, but shortly after 8pm the lights went down and the taped (I know it's on computer, not tape!) introduction started as the band made their way onto the darkened stage. This introduction, with a background of pounding drums, tells the "story" of Meat Loaf (part myth, part fiction) and gives the audience members a chance to get to their seats before the actual show starts.

Meat Loaf concerts are much more shows than musical events, but The Neverland Express, Meat's backup band, is a tight and talented group of musicians. Led by bassist and musical director Kasim Sulton, they create a driving backbeat to the rock-opera that is a Meat Loaf show. Banks of lights over the stage paint an ever-changing bright background in beautiful color combinations. Fog machines, strobes and jobos (lights that rotate and change colors) add their effects.

In front of it all is Meat, prowling and stalking the stage. The follow-spots can barely keep up with him as he leans on the red-wrapped mic stand, then runs to one side of the stage or the other as he belts out his songs. Pulling his vocals from deep inside, he bends over almost double, putting emotion into each and every note. He pantomimes, overacts, and reacts to the audience, wiping his forehead with an ever-present red scarf, despite the cool temperatures. Before launching into a long version of the soon-to-be-released (in the USA and Canada) single "Couldn't Have Said It Better", he tells the audience that the song has been #1 in a lot of countries already, and if it doesn't make it to #1 in the US, it's all our fault!

Like any show, this one is well-scripted. According to director Sulton in a recent interview, many of the songs feature computer-recorded parts including synthesizers and background voices, so the band must be right on the mark matching up to these parts. It may be scripted, but it IS Meat's show, and he stops one song to start into another ("you guys know this one", he says to the band), before returning to the original one and introducing the band members. Throughout this show, Meat Loaf appears to be taking it easy on his throat - avoiding the higher notes that will strain him the most - it appears recent concert cancellations 'due to his health' may be truthful. Late in the show he seems to lose a lot of vocal power and volume, but later it returns for "Paradise By The Dashboard Light", his biggest hit, and after all these years, still the most popular song at his shows. I think more than half of the women in the audience were singing along with Patricia Russo's part in this song! Other times, Meat would skip a verse on a song, holding out the microphone to the audience who would then gladly sing the verse loudly for him!

Without actually leaving the stage after 'Paradise', the first encore was "Bat Out of Hell", and then the band lined up arm in arm and took bows. Again not leaving the stage they played one more song, Chuck Berry's "Back in the USA" (someone correct me if I mis-called this one!). Everyone on the stage grabbed a guitar for this song (even the ladies and keyboard player) and a couple of lucky audience members even got pulled up onto the stage to "join in". Meat had a red, white and blue guitar and two big 3-tubed devices on each side of the stage spit out tons of large red, white and blue confetti and dry-ice fog. The sell-out crowd was up on its feet for this and the dozens of people rushing to the front of the stage were allowed to stay - guess the security people figured they were out-numbered as they are usually strict about "standees". The lights started coming up slowly as Meat and the band took more bows and finally left the stage - Meat Loaf is nothing, if not super appreciative of his audience and this year's tour, called "The Last World Tour" will probably not be his last!