Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)From June of 1978 comes this German television special that captures one of the original Bat Out of Hell tour concerts. The album was just exploding into its cult status at the time and everyone's very young and energetic.
THE GOOD: Well, it's a good view of a period of live Meat Loaf that hasn't been widely seen before. This is the tour where he started to destroy his voice, but he hasn't done it quite yet (though he does struggle with the high notes due to his reckless vocals). The result is a young, powerful voice that hits a lot of good notes. During his performance of "Heaven Can Wait," Meat pulls a Patti Labelle and finishes the song without a microphone emphasizing the size of his voice. Karla DeVito is gloriously fun as Meat's first rock chick. Rory Dodd doesn't really stand out, but it's great to see and hear him performing live. And of course, seeing Jim Steinman live and on stage is a tickle. The German TV interview offers an interesting look at Jim and Meat's early relationship (especially in contrast to what it later became).
THE BAD: The video isn't atrocious, but it sure isn't great. It's about as good as it can be considering its 1-inch videotape roots I suppose, but that isn't saying much. The audio mixing is a complete mess. The drums are trebled, forward, and really quite grinding. Everything else just mushes together into a poorly defined single-layer mess that's entirely too thin for the type of music. The camerawork and lighting are uniformly horrid. This band cannot hold a candle to the Neverland Express that Meat constructed years later. The German interviewer doesn't speak much English and seems absolutely clueless as to what he's doing.
THE CONFUSING: Amazon seems to be fixing how this product is advertised compared to what you actually get, but it was (at least originally) posted as including "River Deep, Mountain High" and "Johnny B. Goode" which are certainly not on the North American disc. Amazon listed this as containing a DTS audio track which is not true; there is only a Dolby Stereo track. And Amazon listed the run-time as 105 minutes, but it is actually only 74 minutes of concert. Amazon's mistakes don't affect my rating but are here just as an FYI.
THE VERDICT: This one's very middle-of-the-road for me. As a historical record, it's interesting. As an opportunity to hear Meat's voice pre-destruction, it's a valuable point of interest for die-hard fans. As a concert video, there's no way you'd reach for this audio mess when you could pop in Meat's "3 Bats" DVD. For the fan, the DVD is dirt cheap and probably a decent buy. For the curious onlooker, I'd advise looking at the more sonically and visually stunning Meat concerts. Ultimately, 2½ stars out of 5 for me.
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BAT OUT OF HELL:ORIGINAL TOUR - DVD Movie
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