When Meat Loaf brought ‘overwrought odes to love and animal magnetism’ to KC
.JPG "Marvin Lee Aday, aka Meat Loaf, performed in Zwolle in the Netherlands in 2013 on his “Last at Bat Farewell Tour.” He performed in Kansas City at least three times during a career that spanned five decades.")
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Meat Loaf drew huge Kansas City crowds with bombastic theatrical rock shows.
- Local events honor him with a musical and a Bat Out of Hell vinyl listening.
- Critics said his theatrical delivery helped keep him popular into the 2000s.
One Friday night in July 1996, “Meat Loaf brought his rollicking, bombastic revue to Sandstone (Amphitheater), where a very large and friendly crowd indulged in his overwrought odes to love and animal magnetism and what usually happens when the twain meet.
“The night peaked, of course, with ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light,’ the saga about lust and surrender that, 18 years later, still visits too many frat parties, wedding receptions and high school reunions.”
That’s how The Star’s music critic described one of the three times Meat Loaf came to Kansas City during a career that spanned five decades and ended with his last concert tour in 2013.
Of course Meat Loaf sang “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” that night.
The famous 1977 rock opera about teen lovers in a parked car featured New York Yankees shortstop Phil Rizzuto doing a play-by-play of a player racing around the bases, squeeze play and all.
“‘Paradise’ will forever be Meat Loaf’s signature, his moment, the reason people come to see him, what ‘American Pie’ is to Don McLean,” the Star wrote.
“He must, at some level, be secure with that notion knowing that no matter what he produces from now on, as long as he performs with gusto, he’ll draw people who want to once again drift back and remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday.”
Four years after his death, Meat Loaf is about to enter the local conversation again through two upcoming events here. The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts announced Monday it will bring “Bat Out of Hell: The Musical,” to Kansas City in April.
Next month, The Listyning Room in Leawood invites Meat Loaf fans to meet there and “experience the operatic grandeur” of the iconic 1977 album, “Bat Out of Hell” — played on vinyl.
When Meat Loaf died in January 2022, “The Rocky Horror Show Live” production in Kansas City dedicated its shows that Halloween season to him. The singer played brain donor Eddie in the 1975 cult classic movie, famously singing “Hot Patootie — Bless My Soul” before being killed by Dr. Frank-N-Furter.
“He was such a nice guy and loved his fans. We were fans ourselves ... REST YOUR soul, we really loved YOUR Rock ‘n’ Roll,” the show posted on its Facebook page.
“Rocky Horror Show Live,” by the way, moves to the Grand Theatre at Crown Center in October.
Meat Loaf — whose physique earned him the loaf-of-meat nickname — was built for the stage. At that 1996 stop at Sandstone, he came off, “rather adroitly, as part sinner, part evangelist and part Vegas showman,” the Star noted.
“His first-person fables are wrought with pain and confession and infused with weak sermons, yet they smolder, like near-death testimonials.”
He first performed here in front of a sold-out crowd inside KCK’s Memorial Hall in March 1994, telling the crowd during an extended intro on “Two Out of Three” that, “for over 20 years I’ve been able to stand on a stage and do what I’m doing tonight. I stand here a grateful human being.”
The freshly minted Grammy winner — Best Rock Vocal — was “everywhere” at the time, The Star wrote. On talk shows. On Top 40 radio shows. His new album, “Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell,” was an international hit.
He even appeared during TV coverage of the Winter Olympics — the Snoop Dogg of his day?
“All of this from a guy who doesn’t write his own music, has only an average voice and — can we be frank? — isn’t too pretty,” The Star wrote.
“A performer can achieve success (rightly or wrongly) by being a good songwriter, an outstanding singer or on sheer good looks — but rarely without any of those qualities. So why Meat Loaf? Why now?”
“We all want to know that,” joked the program director of KY 102, a Kansas City rock station. “A lot of times, it’s just because when you hear a song, you know it’s Meat Loaf. There aren’t too many people who do what’s called theatrical rock. But he does, and he obviously does it pretty well.”
Indeed. After that show at Memorial Hall, The Star declared that “Meat Loaf must be one of the last remaining purveyors of ‘70s theatrical rock, and in a lavish performance Sunday night in Kansas City, Kan., the portly rocker proved he has perfected the art form.”
He was still popular when he returned to Kansas City in 2005 when one music critic declared that, “for a man named after a blue-plate special who had his last truly great album almost three decades ago, Meat Loaf is one white-hot ticket.
“There are certainly greater mysteries floating unsolved in the pop music universe — is Elvis still alive, who killed Kurt Cobain, what’s up with Garfunkel’s hair — but Meat Loaf’s utterly seductive grasp on a still-ravenous classic-rock audience is a stumper for sure.
“When tickets for the Dallas-born rocker’s recent show in Clearwater, Fla., went on sale, the date sold out in no time flat. With demand so ferocious, a second show was added.
“A similar thing happened with the Ameristar Casino in Kansas City. The show originally scheduled for Sept. 17 was moved to Friday, and a second show was added for Thursday night.”
One Star reviewer cringed a bit at the thought of hearing “Paradise” one ... more ... time.
“The Loaf’s young-lust Top 40 hit from 1978 is an operatically tinged rock extravaganza about a teenage couple wrestling with the politics of desire while fogging up the car windows,” they wrote.
“What transpires can be seen as a rite of passage. But whenever I try to ‘see’ the two young people depicted in the song - and, believe me, I’ve tried - all I can conjure up is an image of sweat-soaked man-mountain Meat Loaf screaming his guts out back in the day.
“Paradise, indeed. All I know is that I wouldn’t get in a car with him.”
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