3 Bats Live

AMG Review of 3 Bats Live

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Meat Loaf is seen on his concert tour promoting Bat out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose in this video, which chronicles a stop on the tour in an arena in London, Ontario. The basis of the 18-song, two-hour-and-24-minute performance is the three Bat out of Hell albums, the second of which is called Bat out of Hell II: Back Into Hell. The 59-year-old singer seems least animated when running through material from the three-decades-old original Bat out of Hell, notably the opening number (following a snippet of "All Revved Up with No Place to Go"), "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," the multi-part account of teenage seduction (accompanied by baseball commentary) followed by middle-aged regret, for which he appears on-stage in his late-'70s garb, including a ruffled tuxedo shirt and long-haired wig. Maybe it's just as well to get that old warhorse out of the way early, although, since it requires a degree of acting from him and duet partner Aspen Miller (decked out in a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader outfit) that neither seem prepared for yet, maybe it should have been held until later in the evening. Meat Loaf warms up somewhat as the show goes on, but he doesn't speak until he launches into a story to introduce "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are," which he describes as his second favorite song that he's recorded. (His first favorite goes unrevealed.) The story is abruptly cut off, however, after an audience member claims to have heard it before, apparently from the opening act. Thereafter, this is a typical arena rock show, with multi-colored Vari-lites scraping the stage, pyrotechnics going off in the back, and musicians striking poses as they alternate between melodic heavy metal rockers and power allads, all led by Meat Loaf and his passionate tenor. The Jim Steinman songs that were written for that voice come off best, of course, with the Steinman-lite additions from Bat out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose written by such hacks as Desmond Child and Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx failing to match them. They could have been left out, and the sequencing of the show might have been better thought out, but Meat Loaf clearly is maintaining his vocal chops and the production values of his stage show as he approaches 60. (He also looks like he's about ready to star in a film biography of Orson Welles, if anyone ever decides to make one.) The DVD also includes three music videos of songs from Bat out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose.