What To Do When Meat Loaf Goes Off

Editorial

After no doubt one of Meat Loaf’s more forgettable long-haul flights to our fair shores, the big fella’s hit back this week with some of his own tetchy riposte.

Labelling AFL bosses as “jerks” and biting back at the overwhelming barrage of disdain from pretty much everyone who saw this year’s grand final, the 64 year-old ‘Loaf has decided to pass the word around his circle of still-active-on-the-live-scene Baby Boomer rock mates to keep the hell away from Australia’s poor man’s Superbowl.

“…anybody that I hear announces that they're going to play for them I'm going to write to that particular artist a letter and tell them not to.” He ranted earlier this week in the Sunday Herald Sun newspaper.

Returning serve labeling all of his Australian critics as “butt smellers”, the ‘Loaf defends his stinky performance saying there wasn’t enough time to sound check, the stage was too small, there was no proper piano, and he couldn’t hear the tape feed properly in his earpiece.

Those who saw Meat Loaf’s half a million dollar 10 minutes of extreme live hell would surely agree his much hyped pre-game set was woeful. I don’t even think the “Loaf would argue that one.

But reading all this made me feel a bit sorry for one Marvin Lee Aday (his real name). If I was flown across the world for one of the southern hemisphere’s biggest days of television I’d want to make sure I had a decent sound check as well, and at least the right gear on stage to do my thing.

Meat Loaf’s right about that stage. It’s an absolute joke. It looks terrible hacked into the stands like that with the Four’N Twenty eating masses looking on from the stalls, and the loosely hung beer banners down the front makes the whole multi-million dollar event look more like a CUB sponsored parish fete.

It’s not only crazy that Meat Loaf didn’t get the sound check time he needed to get things right, it’s crazy for the AFL not to want to make sure he was happy. No doubt ‘Loaf’s crew were subjected to a bunch of know-it-all corporate morons who have absolutely no understanding of stage production and reasonable artist needs.

Musicians playing along to guide tapes like this for live television is always going to be fraught with disastrous risks, as Chris from Jet proved in 2007 by drumming along to a quiet break in the song. You’re relying on everything synching up to the pre-recorded feed, and if something as simple as in-ear foldback goes down, you’re screwed. You can’t just turn around to the band and pick up your place because there’s no noise even coming out of the amps. He was doomed from the start.

Consequently Meat Loaf copped a bigger walloping than Collingwood did that day, and will go down as one of the all time Grand Final pre-game fizzers, at least until they wheel out the next classic rocker whose blistering performance days are well and truly behind them.

But it’s really the AFL who should be answering to, A/ squandering all this money on a guy like Meat Loaf, and B/ skimping on making sure the production values don’t begin and end at a 10 metre colour canvas of Carlton Draught beer.

If you’re going to put on pre-game entertainment and spend a fortune on Gold 104 legends like Meat Loaf, at least make sure their surrounds are just as impressive as the massive call out fee. Otherwise just get the whole night Grand Final idea over with so at least so-and-so on the fireworks button is ready to go when the next half a million turd needs a polish.

Dave Larkin, Citysearch

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