Review by SueW:
This was a case of third time lucky for Kasim Sulton with this venue in Orlando as his previous two appearances here were cancelled (April 2007 when Meat Loaf got sick and June 2006 when Elliott Easton of The New Cars broke his shoulder). I wasn’t planning on going to the April gig but when Kasim said that he was playing a solo gig the next night, I was lucky enough to find a friend who had a spare ticket - a nice surprise was that it was in the second row! I last came to Hard Rock Live in the first week of 2000 (the Meat Loaf StoryTellers Tour) and I remembered then that they had the air conditioning set on “fierce” so thankfully I took a jacket but I still was chilly by the end of the concert. Thank goodness Boca Raton is outside on Thursday!

Security on cameras here was VERY strict! Although a couple of people managed to smuggle theirs in they were checking bags very thoroughly – I even had to open up my GPS to prove it wasn’t a camera and we had to go through a metal detector! Although once inside people were openly using their cell phones to take photos and some of them take photos as good as a camera nowadays. As soon as the band took the stage lots of the first row went up to the front of the stage. The security guard (a young girl) near me was stopping people from other rows going but the guard at the other side didn’t seem at all bothered! The stage was about 5 feet high so we could still see over the people at the front fine. One unusual aspect of this concert was that there was a beach ball bouncing around the crowd for a lot of the concert!

I was only back in UK for a week but it appears that they’ve changed a couple of things in the set list. There were screens on either side of the stage that they used before the concert to advertise other gigs but they didn’t use them during the concert itself so I’m not sure if they’ve stopped things like the Meat Loaf Alive video montage or whether it was just for this show.

The first difference was that instead of the distinctive music they used to play at the start they had the Jim Steinman Nocturnal Pleasures speech from the DeadRinger album before the band burst on stage to sing part of All Revved Up. Kasim was in another of his energetic happy-to-be-on-stage moods which was great to see as he was bouncing all over the place, although he did only go over to Paul’s side a couple of times during the set. There was a young boy with his mother standing in front of Kasim for most of the concert and at one point Kasim took his guitar pick, gave it a lick and stuck it on the boy’s forehead! Tonight Kasim was wearing all black (plus wore his glasses) and used his pearl coloured bass guitar for all the set until Paradise By The Dashboard Light when he swapped to his black KSulton bass for the rest of the concert.

Although probably financially unviable on a permanent basis, having 3 days off obviously worked wonders for Meat Loaf’s voice as it was excellent tonight! I was right by a big bank of speakers so the sound was slightly distorted for me but it was great to hear Meat Loaf singing so well. He was obviously having fun on stage tonight too as a couple of times he imitated the girls’ dancing. There was also a funny bit near the end of the set (Mercury Blues I think) when he stood next to Paul Crook and they did a head banging bit in unison. As the light was off them at that time when the spotlight came back on them, Meat Loaf counted to 4 so that they could do it together again but unfortunately one of them started by going backwards and the other by going forewards!

Also in Mercury Blues there was a part when Paul Crook, Meat Loaf and Kasim were standing together (playing their guitars) and they got Randy to come across to them. When he arrived they indicated for him to go away and then called him back again and then made him go away. They then did some sort of leaning down thing before Meat Loaf went to the microphone and said that that was funny. I didn’t understand that part (and I’m not explaining it well!) but at dinner after the show, some other fans said that they didn’t understand what was supposed to be so funny either, especially as apparently Meat Loaf did that at the Tunica show too but without the Randy part!

I was slightly concerned as there was one fan very close to one inflatable doll just before it shot up in the air at the beginning of Break It (as there was no barrier at this venue the dolls were on the floor) but thankfully they were okay! When it did collapse at the end, it fell on the jobs-worth security girl!

Due to the screen situation tonight they didn’t play the Alive video montage so instead Mark Alexander played the dramatic musical introduction to Alive (as they used to do in UK) which meant that the poor guy didn’t get a break (although all the band wander off stage during Paradise).

My favourites (Frying Pan and Rock ‘n’ Roll Dreams) were brilliant again tonight. Dave Luther always receives a massive well-deserved round of applause after his sax solo in the latter song, even though Meat Loaf is already singing at that point.

I don’t know if the girls got changed further away from the stage than normal but a couple of times they seemed to return to the stage just slightly later than usual but I was very impressed to see that one time when the door at the back of the stage opened, CC was already singing into her microphone off stage!

I’m not a big fan of Paradise By The Dashboard Light (and after seeing Meat Loaf in concert over 250 times, I like the song even less!) but obviously it’s a big crowd-pleaser but it is getting more and more padded out on this tour as there’s now so much talking in it (and I still miss Meat Loaf’s monologue that he used to do on stage in Europe before he saing Objects In The Rear View Mirror). I did wonder how they were going to do the sketch tonight as they weren’t using the screens (so they couldn’t show his 7-pack) so instead they just talked about it and Meat Loaf went on about his foam rubber suit (although tonight he never called it a fat suit). There was one really funny part when Meat Loaf was trying (and succeeding!) to get Aspen to laugh. You could see that she was trying not to but there was a definite smirk on her face.

The band didn’t get into their 70s clothes tonight (I think it’s the first time on this tour that Kasim has worn the same outfit throughout the whole concert) and for some reason Meat Loaf didn’t say the embarrassed line so Aspen had no reason to take his wig off. Instead she snatched it off his head right at the end of the song.

Bat Out Of Hell was brilliant (as always) again tonight although Meat Loaf did come in early on one line so he stopped singing and then sang it in the correct place.

Before the encore Meat Loaf came on stage and thanked gave a heartfelt thanks to all 1,600 who had held onto their tickets since April. He then said “f’’k you” to the 4,000 who had returned theirs! Although he ultimately made a joke of it, that was a really nice gesture.

Other websites:
Meat Loaf's official website MeatLoaf.net has a thread about this concert here.

Many thanks to Kathy Borror for most of the photos on this page.

Meat Loaf Bat Out Of Hell III Tour