Review by SueW:
Just once it would be nice to see Kasim on an occasion when I hadn’t been up for almost 24 hours so that I feel shattered before he even walks on stage! After flying out to US 8 times this summer and being shattered at each of those gigs, I really thought that this one would be different as they weren’t due on stage until midnight – unfortunately I hadn’t factored into account the fact that I had to get up at 3.45am to catch the ferry! I’d arranged to meet a friend at Frankfurt Airport to drive her to the gig but unfortunately her flight was delayed by about 2 hours. That meant that I had to hang around the airport for about 3 hours and she arrived at the time we were supposed to be collecting our tickets! I’d rung ahead and a German friend had told them that we were arriving late but then we had horrendous problems trying to find the venue. We ended up driving in and out of Mannheim about 4 times! The worst thing was when I received a call to say that the lady with the tickets was going home in half an hour … this was when we were heading out of the city again!

Eventually we found it (at about 8.00pm and the event had started at 6.30pm) and there were loads of guys in dress suits (what the Germans call "a smoking"!) and all the ladies were dressed up. There was also a red carpet leading to it with loads of press taking photos. I dropped my friend off to get our tickets with about 2 minutes to spare and she set off up the red carpet in denim jeans so security soon stopped her! Thankfully they allowed her in to get our tickets and after we’d spent an hour finding our hotel and getting changed we got back to the venue by about 10.30pm!

The venue itself was massive with a large room in the middle where there were loads of tables (each seating about 10 people) on several levels. All around the room there were other stages where bands were playing and people dancing and in other areas there were string quartets playing Mozart. There were people there whose task was just to open doors for us and they were all dressed up in period costume. Eventually we found another large room upstairs which had a band playing and then some incredible acrobats from something like Cirque du Soleile who were just amazing! There was also this guy covered in white body paint who we thought was a robot at first as he was just gliding around the room VERY slowly.

At about 11.30pm we went down to the main room and they were doing some sort of presentation and then another band came on for a couple of songs so Meat Loaf started probably about 10 minutes late. I stood at the front to the left of where Randy Flowers stands so I could look across at all the stage. I was standing outside of the direction where the speakers were pointing but afterwards I spoke to a German lady who was right in the middle and she agreed with me that the sound was diabolical! She said that it was a feature of the evening and that she couldn’t even understand what they were saying in German at the presentation part. In fact just before It’s All Coming Back To Me Now Meat Loaf spoke for a while and I literally couldn’t understand a word he said! Thankfully I knew all the songs they played tonight but it was difficult to make out the words.

Professional photographers were allowed in for the first 3 songs but after that they were ushered out where I stood, security were not allowing anyone else to take photos. Friends in the middle said that they could take photos throughout the whole set but we couldn’t where I was for some reason. Thankfully by the final time they relaxed a bit so I took a few shots during Bat Out Of Hell (mainly of Kasim, of course!).

The beginning of the set was the same as in Boston as the band played part (a chorus) of All Revved Up. Thankfully Dave Luther had his back pack switched on this time so we could hear all of his sax solo at the beginning!

They then went into Life Is A Lemon which was a slightly shorter version than they’ve played on previous tours (they mainly missed out some of the guitar bit at the end). There seemed to be some problem with Kasim’s microphone during this song as we could hardly hear him during the "It’s defective" part but thankfully they turned it up a bit near the end of that section. Unfortunately Aspen missed the first line of the "What about…" part (as she did in Boston) but apart from that it was fine.

As this was a relatively short set (only an hour) they kept up the cracking pace with another fast song next – Out Of The Frying Pan (And Into The Fire) which was brilliant to hear again! However it was at this point that quite a few (older!) people started to leave. I think they were expecting more subdued songs at this sort of society event and obviously didn’t recognise Lemon or Frying Pan. It meant that there was more room at the front and I had the unusual experience of standing next to a guy who was dressed up as Mozart! Even though the sound was pretty crap through this song, it was still an amazing performance and the band’s energy was amazing! Meat Loaf’s probably was too but it was a very wide stage so often I couldn’t see him! There was also a flight of steps in the middle of the stage and when he stood at the top of that it looked from my angle as though he was standing on the heads of people in the crowd! For some reason Mark Alexander didn’t have anything to sit on so he looked quite uncomfortable hunched up over his keyboards all the set!

Next they sang You Took the Words (which most people seemed to know) before a shortened version of Anything For Love. I don’t know if it was intentional or not but it seemed that they kept Aspen more out of the spotlight (or maybe it was because her stage presence when she’s not centre-stage isn’t as good as Patti’s was), although to be fair to her I discovered later that they were supposed to play Paradise By The Dashboard Light as the encore but they ran out of time. During one of these songs Charlie (Kasim’s bass tech) dashed on stage and put a pedal down for Kasim to use – I don’t know what that was all about! We then had a very shortened version of If It Ain't Broke, Break It (without the slow part - like the song is on the album).

Next was one of the highlights of the concert (and the weekend long trip) for me – the first public performance of The Monster Is Loose. I hate going to concerts without knowing all the songs but thankfully this was one that I had "learnt" but the surprise for me was that I must have been listening to a shortened promo copy as there was a whole part of the song at the end that I hadn’t heard before!!! Although he didn’t have the words on stage with him, for some reason Kasim wore his glasses during the first part of the song and was obviously concentrating a lot in this song! It was very noticeable that he stayed at his microphone stand quite a lot more than he does for other songs and kept quite a beady eye on the rest of the band and on Meat Loaf.

Next they brought Marion Raven out on stage and sang It’s All Coming Back To Me Now. As Meat Loaf was introducing the song (I think as we couldn’t really hear much!) he went back to the drum riser to get some water so Marion said the name of the song and for some reason her spoken words came out as clear as anything! I really like Celine Dion’s version of the song but the more times I hear Meat Loaf’s version (especially live) the more I like it. Tonight it was very obvious that Kasim (with his glasses back on again) was singing virtually all of Meat Loaf’s words with him. Although Kasim’s microphone wasn’t very loud I wondered if that was to give him reassurance especially as Meat Loaf says that he has trouble remembering the words to that song. Whatever the reason, it was great to see!

Next we had Bat Out Of Hell and almost everybody in the hall seemed to recognise that so it was a great atmosphere, especially as the Germans (even the Toffs) really got into it!

All too soon they left the stage and it was obvious that they were waiting to sing the Paradise encore as Paul (who was the only one I could see) was waiting in the wings for ages. Eventually the event compere came out and was almost booed off the stage!! Apparently he said that they had to finish there as it was past one o’clock. As the event didn’t finish until 4.00am I couldn’t really see the problem but he was adamant!

All in all it was a good concert and, other than the crap sound, had far less technical problems than Boston two weeks earlier!

All in all it was well worth the 1,037 mile roundtrip drive!

Kasim Sulton's 2006 Gigs and Appearances with Meat Loaf