MEATLOAF

MEATLOAF (The Point Depot, Dublin)

HE CAME from Planet Girth. Bestriding the stage in a suitably colossus-like fashion, the man they call Meat leads his frenzied followers through a three-hour extravaganza of orchestral excess.

First things first: this is not, in any recognisable sense of the words, rock’n’roll. It is, in actual fact, a pop cabaret. Had Sonny Knowles been born in the Deep South, ate rather more than was good for him and teased his flowing locks in the rockist manner, he may well have turned out something like this.

It might not have been a bad thing. For while a Meatloaf show is by no means important, serious or worthy, it’s sure as hell entertaining. This is frivolous, over-the-top, glitzily-staged stuff and it’s all taken very seriously indeed by the audience. “Led ma hear y’all say Meadloaf,” says our man. “Meadloaf,” we all cheerily respond.

Meatloaf’s success can probably be attributed to the seemingly insatiable worldwide appetite for American cars’n’girls nostalgia. On Planet Girth, it is always 1955 and paradise will forever be visible by the dashboard light.

As we know, behind every great pop star lurks a cunning pop svengali and here, we must pay due tribute to one James Steinman. Only Jim could concoct a number as gloriously overblown as ‘I Would Do Anything For Love’ and only Meat could do it justice. It’s delivered in truly bombastic style tonight and your scribe is even forced to forgive that line about “sex and drums and rock’n’roll”. Drums, Mr Loaf.

All the hoary old favourites are trotted out with gusto: we’re treated (if that’s the word— to a 20-minute (yes, 20-minute) version of ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ and even the lesser-known efforts (the monstrous ‘Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back’) are lapped up lustily by the faithful, an intriguing and not undisturbing mix of the fairly old and the fairly young.

The stage show, predictably, is spectacularly theatrical, with Meat dashing about frantically, creating a panto-like mise-en-scène, as a film critic might put it. He handles it all with the aplomb of an old hand, generating a healthy rapport with his audience or, to go back to the film critic, a certain frisson.

The unbelievably sickly lurve ballad ‘Heaven Can Wait’ proves for whatever odd reason, to be a highlight as does ‘Dead Ringer For Love’, it’s “rock and roll and brew” refrain making it the ultimate beer boy anthem. Oh how the memories of those naggin-and-a-batter-burger youth club hops come flooding back . . .

And so, with a “G’night, Dublin”, he takes his leave, much to the despair of the worshipping throng. Stars just don’t come much bigger.

• Kevin Barry