Concert Review :

Rockfest Review
Caddott Wisconsin
7/ 18-21/ 02
By Dan Wall

The ninth-annual RockFest is in the books for another year, and the yearly gathering that takes place in the serene setting of Cadott, Wisconsin just gets better and better every year. 2002 was no exception.

I implore anyone out there who is into classic rock to explore the RockFest website (www.rockfest.com) to learn about the many special features of the fest. The VIP seating, the wonderful location, the extra musical acts and of course the action on the main stage has made it easy for me to travel over 1800 miles on this same mid-July weekend for the last four years. I have already made my hotel reservations for next year.

Due to the fact that this site is all about the music, I will get on with the review. (Set lists are included when I had it exactly right. Due to breaks, meet-and-greets and other activity, I missed a few songs and complete sets and I am a stickler for getting this stuff right).

THURSDAY

DIO

SET LIST: Killing the Dragon, Egypt, Children of the Sea, Push, Stand Up and Shout, Rock and Roll, Man on the Silver Mountain, Long Live Rock and Roll, Holy Diver, Heaven and Hell. Encore: Rainbow in the Dark.

Ronnie James Dio and the boys kicked things off on the main stage after a performance by local boys (Green Bay) Vic Ferrari. The five-piece band tore the place up with an hour-long set that included Dio’s best solo stuff and the cream of the Sabbath and Rainbow crop.

The diminutive singer with the huge voice (he’d be in the Heavy Metal Hall of Fame if there was one) led his band through the paces with new guitarist Doug Aldrich standing out as the best axe-slinger Dio has employed since Vivian Campbell. Jimmy Bain and Simon Wright held down the bottom, while keyboardist Scott Warren added flourishes to fill out the sound.

The songs were the real star, of course, with “Stand Up and Shout” taking best of set honors and showing off Aldrich’s considerable skills. Dio’s new album Killing the Dragon is his best in years, and whether playing new stuff or the old classics, Dio turned out to be the perfect opener on this night.

SCORPIONS

SET LIST: Coming Home, Bad Boys Running Wild, The Zoo, We’ll Burn the Sky, Tease Me Please Me, Coast to Coast, In Trance, No One Like You, Big City Nights, He’s a Woman, She’s a Man, Dynamite, Blackout. Encore: Winds of Change, Still Loving You, Rock You Like a Hurricane.

The Scorpions are a very hard act to follow (or proceed for that matter), and on this night it took near-perfect sets from Dio and Deep Purple to prevent themselves from getting blown off the stage.

I don’t think I have ever seen the Scorpions bad. Or even close to it. The band just has the ability to entertain, and with a back catalog (look at that set list), it doesn’t matter if there is a new album to support or not, the Scorpions are the stuff live.

Hitting the stage running with “Coming Home,” the quintet was their typical loud, energetic self throughout the 85-minute set. As a matter of fact, the band played the whole show with a big shit-eating grin on their faces, and most of the crowd wore one as well.

Klaus Meine is well, Klaus Meine. He is still small (duh-is he bigger than Dio?), uses that goofy little one-legged dance as his main stage move and sings in a voice that has been known to gather up the neighborhood canines, but who cares? He is one of the best frontmen in rock, and with all that noise going on behind him, is still able to cut through all that riffing to get those big choruses out to the back of the house.

Guitarist Rudolph Schenker and Mattias Jabs are a tremendous tandem, with Schenker running the length of the stage repeatedly while holding the riffs together, as Jabs re-creates those infamous solos from the Scorpions songbook. Bassist Ralph Rieckermann and drummer James Kottak are hired hands but have been around for nearly eight years now, and have definitely become part of the family.

I was particularly happy with the inclusion of “We’ll Burn the Sky” and “In Trance,” two of my favorite songs from the early years. It didn’t matter what the guys did, however, because on this night the Scorpions came, conquered and headed backstage to the delight of some of Cadott’s finest looking ladies (I was back there-I know).

DEEP PURPLE

SET LIST: Fireball, Woman From Tokyo, Ted the Mechanic, Lazy, Well Dressed Guitar, Knocking at Your Back Door, Space Truckin’, Perfect Strangers, Speed King, Smoke on the Water. Encore: Hush, Highway Star.

Deep Purple closed on this night (the Scorps and Purple rotate the closing slot on this tour with Dio), and as I mentioned earlier, it took a near-perfect set to get the Scorpions off of the crowd’s minds.

  It appeared early in this tour that the Scorpions were winning the battle every night because Purple had failed to grasp the importance of playing the “best of” set to an American audience in the summer. “Fools” and “Mary Long” are fun songs, but at the expense of “Space Truckin’” or “Perfect Strangers.” Uh, no, that’s why a lot of the girlfriends were heading to the car after the Scorps, with the guys staying behind to play air guitar.

  If you look at the set above, however, you will see that someone (the fan base on the band’s website?) had something to do with the change in the set. The band has reinstated a lot of its favorites and is playing like a machine onstage again.

Ian Gillan, Roger Glover and Ian Paice are all still displaying great skill at their advancing age, but it’s the new guys, keyboardist Don Airey and guitarist Steve Morse (particularly Morse), who have given the band a kick up the backside.

A few chants of  “Ritchie who?,” in response to former guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, followed many of Morse’s solos, as the former –Dixie Dreg brought his own original style to the show. His singular style is so unique that one guy I talked to said he knew it was Morse but was unaware he was actually in the band when the set started, but knew it was Morse once he heard him. Airey hit all the cues and filled in capably for departed keyboardist Jon Lord.

Gillan was in fine voice, which is good news since he had to cancel some European dates due to throat problems. Glover and Paice are one of rock’s greatest rhythm sections, and on this night they drove all of the band’s big songs to glorious climaxes (or was that the Scorpions backstage?) Anyway, day one is now over and it’s on to the side stages to listen to cover songs.

(Author’s note: I saw this same show, with the Scorpions headlining, on July 28 in Concord, CA. Same exact show, save for the Scorps cutting “In Trance” and “He’s a Woman, She’s a Man.” Great show, both times).

FRIDAY

PAT TRAVERS

SET LIST: Hooked on Music, Life in London, Just Enough Money, The Pain, Elijah, Stevie, Whipping Post, Snortin’ Whiskey, Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights), Born Under a Bad Sign.

Travers kicks things off on the main stage Friday, and he really hasn’t changed much over the years. A bit older, a bit wiser (he did drop the organ from his set), and still one of the best blues rock guitarists to come out of the 70’s, Travers and band (drums and bass) knocked out most of his hits (although I will never understand why he dropped the hit medley from this set) and a few obscure bits during his hour onstage.

“Life in London” is still one of my favorite songs from that era, and of course the place gets up for “Boom Boom.” But its over 100 degrees out and it takes all of the energy the crowd can muster to get up for the sing-a-long. Travers is a great player but I think he is better off back in the clubs, knocking out his classics to the faithful.

AVERAGE WHITE BAND

NO SET LIST

AWB is about as welcome as a turd in a punchbowl here, but that doesn’t mean the group sucks. It’s just a weird setting, with Travers done and Nugent and Journey on deck, which makes this band’s inclusion a head-scratcher. Maybe a case of booking policy (you know, I’ll give you Robert Plant if you take AWB) or maybe the promoter likes the band, I don’t know; it just seemed like it took quite a bit to get the crowd into this act.

The bands sings like birds, though, and plays as tight and professionally as anyone on the bill. And everyone loves “Pick Up the Pieces.” AWB expanded the musical knowledge of those in attendance, many who were thinking about where Kansas or Night Ranger were on this day (not far away, I understand).

CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVISITED

NO SET LIST

CCR is nothing more than a glorified cover band, and John Fogerty is probably steaming just thinking about these guys making money playing his songs, but the truth is they do a pretty good job.

Stu Cook and Doug Clifford are the first members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to play the RockFest this weekend, and the tight five-piece band rips up the CCR hits like a serious band.

Even though I had to hit the chow line before the group was done, I can report that the band played all of the favorites, including “Born on the Bayou,” Green River,” Lodi,” “I Heard it Through the Grapevine, “Suzie Q,” “Up Around the Bend,” “Proud Mary, “Fortunate Son,” “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” “Down on the Corner” and “Traveling’ Band.” The all-star rhythm section was nails all night, while vocalist John Tristao was more than able to replicate Fogerty’s vocals on the classics. Elliot Easton is also a revelation, the former Cars guitarist nailing the solos that put CCR in the HOF (by the way, I’ll piss on the HOF until Sabbath, Skynyrd and AC/DC are in it).

The die-hards might be just as upset as Fogerty is, but the average, everyday rock fan simply enjoys the opportunity to share these songs once again.

TED NUGENT

SET LIST: Star Spangled Banner, Free For All, Storm Troopin’, Journey to the Center of Your Mind, Baby Please Don’t Go, Wang Dang Sweet Poontang, Just What the Doctor Ordered, KLSTRPHNKY, Road Dogs and War Hogs, I Won’t Go Away, Weekend Warriors, Hey Baby, Fred Bear, Cat Scratch Fever, Stranglehold. Encore: The Great White Buffalo.      

If you listened very closely, no matter where you were on this night, you might have heard Uncle Ted ripping up the fest.

I was at Cal Jam 2 in 1978, the day people in Riverside swear they heard Ted, who was in San Bernardino, and I can testify that Nugent is just as over the top, raucous and loud as he ever was. He doesn’t swing on ropes or leap off amps anymore, but he is an even better guitarist now than he was back in his 70’s heyday. And his band of bassist Marco Mendoza and drummer Tommy Clufetos are as solid a backing unit as you could ever hope for.

The blueprint for the show is similar to recent years-Nugent stacks up the amps, turns them up to 10 (14 is more like it) and lets it rip. “Free For All” sends the house into a frenzy, and it pretty much stays that way for the next 80 minutes. Nugent pulls a classic out of his catalog, turns it up, rips it shreds and puts it back for another day. Mendoza and Clufetos hammer the song into submission, as Nugent screams and solos over the piledriving.

You haven’t experienced “Fred Bear” until you’ve seen it played in the Wisconsin outback before nearly 30,00 hunters. Mendoza aces “Just What the Doctor Ordered” and “Hey Baby” as Nugent takes a vocal break. And “Stranglehold” was brilliant, Nugent playing his best song for nearly 12 minutes and absolutely acing the closing section. It’s amazing three guys can make so much noise.

The encore of “Great White Buffalo” sees Nugent in Indian headdress and his archery skills are put to use on a guitar at the show’s conclusion. I’ve seen the man over 20 times since 1975, and have enjoyed every minute out it. Ted once told me he didn’t think he would be jumping off of amps at this age, and he isn’t, but he is still a master guitar player and entertainer. Regardless of whether you agree with his kill-it and grill-it lifestyle, Ted Nugent is an American rock and roll icon.

JOURNEY

SET LIST: State of Grace, Separate Ways, Ask the Lonely, Stone in Love, Only the Young, Lights, Open Arms, Just the Same Way, Higher Place, The Time, Don’t Stop Believin’, Faithfully, Escape, Wheel in the Sky, Be Good to Yourself. Encore: Anyway You Want It, Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.        

You can probably tell that I have a pretty intimate and lengthy relationship with most of these bands. My relationship with Journey goes back so far that most of you out there never even had a chance to see the band when I first did.

It was opening night at Winterland in San Francisco in 1975, with Montrose, Journey and UFO on the bill. It was and still is the greatest show I have ever seen, with UFO doing two encores, Journey four and Montrose five. The show started at 8 p.m. and ended at 2:05 a.m. I was 15 years old and fell in love with all of these bands.

One thing I remember was Neal Schon’s solo in “Of a Lifetime,” one of the great early Journey songs, and the crowd response the song afforded. He aced the solo in the song’s middle section, and when the band came back in, the crowd was so loud it drowned out the music onstage. This of course led to a number of standing ovations and the four encores.

I’ve interviewed the band a number of timers over the years, and was there when Steve Perry played his first gigs with the band. I’ve loved every version of the band, and have to say that the latest grouping is playing as well as Journey ever has. They are certainly not hurting this band’s image, as Perry has suggested.

The band’s appearance at this year’s RockFest was its third in four years. As a matter of fact, the band opened its first tour with new vocalist Steve Augeri here in 1998, and is a favorite of the Wisconsin crowd.

This year’s set was Journey at its finest. Augeri, hitting all but the highest notes, is an able replacement for Perry. He is very similar in style and delivery as well, and its amazing that the band was able to find a guy that fits in this well.

Schon is simply one of the greatest guitarists in the history of melodic rock. Even after Aldrich, Jabs, Morse, Travers and Nugent showed off their considerable talents, Schon was still able to impress with his lightning fast solos and melodic stylings. Bassist Ross Valory and drummer Dean Castronovo are rock solid, and Jonathan Cain is one of rock’s most versatile players, whether chipping in on keyboards or guitar.

The band has a new four-song e.p. coming out called Code Red, and the two new songs aired, “State of Grace” and “The Time,” were heavier in direction. Schon wants to take the band into a heavier direction without losing its melodic leanings, and if these songs are any indication, it has succeeded.

But it was the big hits that sent the place into a frenzy, with “Lights,” “Open Arms,” and “Faithfully” warming up the ladies, and “Escape,” “Wheel in the Sky” and “Be Good to Yourself” firing up the guys. The encore of “Anyway You Want It” and “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’” was loved by everyone, and was a fitting end to a superb show. Onto Saturday.

SATURDAY

THE WORLD CLASSIC ROCKERS

SET LIST: Take It Easy, Take it To the Limit, Hotel California, Me and Bobby McGee, Magic Carpet Ride, Hot Blooded, Go Now, Band on the Run, Rosanna, Born to be Wild.

Ringo Starr’s first all-star band is considered the blueprint for these superstar groupings of musicians from various bands who get together to tour, make music and make money. Most are guys who couldn’t sustain a full tour (or a full set) by themselves, so they get together, play the best from each other’s catalog and have fun.

The Voices of Classic Rock and the World Classic Rockers are two of the better groups on the road today, each featuring many classic rock stars in its ensemble. WCR opened the show on Saturday, and surprised many that had no idea what they were about to see.

Led by Steppenwolf’s first bassist, Nick St. Nicholas, its first guitarist Michael Monarch, along with the Eagles’ Randy Meisner, Wings’ Denny Laine and Toto’s Fergie Frederiksen, the World Classic Rockers are an entertaining, touring jukebox who have more than a wealth of great material to choose from.

Just take a look at that set list. Meisner led the set off with three Eagles classics, before the band’s back-up vocalist Rosilee paid tribute to Janis Joplin with “Me and Bobby McGee.” St. Nicholas proved to have the grapefruits to play Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” (remember, John Kay didn’t want St. Nicholas to even have the right to say he was an ex-member of Steppenwolf, which is a bit ridiculous, but it took a court battle for him to be able to say he was ever in the band). Laine and Frederiksen each had their moments before the whole ensemble helped St. Nicholas close the set down with the all-time classic “Born to be Wild.”

The band nearly got an encore, as the crowd ate up this early afternoon lesson in modern rock history. If you have a chance to see these guys at a fair or corporate event, do not hesitate to go.

LOVERBOY

SET LIST: The Kid is Hot Tonight, Lucky Ones, Lady of the 80’s, Take Me to the Top, Teenage Overdose, Notorious, When It’s Over, Hot Girls in Love, Turn Me Loose, Working For the Weekend.

Loverboy is one of those bands that really benefited from the massive RockFest stage and sound. Sometimes lumped into that hairband, power ballad category, these guys can really rock when given the opportunity. The boys rocked here, when turned up to 10 and blasting out all of the hits and none of the ballads.

Loverboy was always a faceless band, with vocalist Mike Reno the only guy you could have picked out of a crowd, and nothing’s really changed. Five Canadian guys who play rock and roll, and have quite a back catalog to pick from. Not the best band of the festival but not the worst either. By a long shot.

BLONDIE

NO SET LIST

If the AWB was a weird inclusion on this festival bill, Blondie was even weirder. Handicapped by the fact that it isn’t the greatest live band to ever grace a stage, the set was more of a Debbie Harry stare-a-thon and an occasional nod of acceptance toward a big hit (“Hanging on the Telephone,” “Call Me,” “One Way or Another”) than an all-out scorcher.

I’ve never really seen Blondie tear a place up though. It always looks like a nod and a wink to New York fashion and coolness than a sleazy rock show when this band plays. They’re okay, and a few suprises (like the inclusion of the Ramones “Havana Affair”) rocked the show up a little bit more than normal, but Blondie is probably better off playing a theater in front of the faithful than trying to convert 30,000 people to its cause. Especially with Robert Plant and George Thorogood in the wings.

GEORGE THOROGOOD AND THE DESTROYERS

NO SET LIST

I did not see Thorogood’s set. I was waiting in line for a Robert Plant meet-and-greet. I did hear it from the side of the stage, however, and I can report that he did all of the classics (“Bad to the Bone,” “Who Do You Love,” “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer, “ “Night Time,” “Move It on Over.”) He sounded good and the place ate it up. I’m not the biggest Thorogood fan, but he still sounds great and he can really work a crowd in a festival setting like this.

ROBERT PLANT

SET LIST: Four Sticks, Win My Train Fare Home, Fixin’ to Die, Darkness, Darkness, Going to California, Ship of Fools, Hey Joe, Celebration Day, Tall Cool One, Whole Lotta Love. Encore: Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.

Easily the biggest name ever at the RockFest, Robert Plant turned out to be quite a revelation on this night.         

I’m not always into the meet-and-greet thing, but a chance to meet your hero puts you into a different frame of mind. Since I’ve seen Thorogood many times and never met Plant, the decision to miss Thorogood’s set to personally greet Plant was a no-brainer. (I did, however, give up chances to meet Nugent and Toto to see Journey and Cinderella, I will let you know).

            “It’s a great pleasure to meet you, Robert.”

            “The pleasure is all mine.”

            Plant autographs my program, I tell I saw him at Zeppelin’s last show in Oakland in 1977, and that’s it. It was worth every minute of waiting, though.

Plant’s set was a surprise, as well. I have been following his shows for most of the last year on the Internet, and he usually plays a few Zep tunes, a few early solo pieces and features most of the new Dreamland stuff in his set. Here, he knocked the new songs out early, played a few solo hits and slaughtered (in a good way) the older Zep stuff, including “Whole Lotta Love,” which sent the crowd into a tizzy.

The encore of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” is a celebratory moment for Plant and his new band, which features his son-in-law Charlie Jones on bass and former Cure guitarist Porl Thompson on guitar. The stop-start, quiet-loud projectory of the song shows that these guys can play anything, from the quiet blues of “Win My Train Fare Home” to the raucous romp of “Celebration Day.” Plant’s set is short (only 75 minutes) but in that time he showed why he is the greatest rock singer ever. Check out the new album if you are into his voice and songs, and make sure to see him live for a unique career retrospective.

SUNDAY

STARSHIP WITH MICKEY THOMAS

SET LIST: Wild Again, Jane, Sara, Find Your Way Back, Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, Winds of Change, Stranger, Fooled Around and Fell in Love, We Built This City. Encore: Somebody to Love.

It’s 105 degrees out when Starship hits the stage Sunday. Mickey Thomas and the boys do a good job of turning up that thermometer even more during their hour onstage.

With guitarist Eric Torjesen doing his best to audition for a gig in Metallica, the Starship back catalog is given a metallic boost by Thomas’ backing band. “Stranger,” a nice mid-paced romp from Modern Times, is transformed into a heavy-duty guitar workout. “Wild Again,” “Jane,” just pick one and it sounded beefier and better here at the Rockfest. Even “We Built This City” rocked.

Thomas looks good and still sounds great. Just another in a long line of bands who are better now than they were in the heyday. More will follow on the same stage today.

TOTO

SET LIST: Bodhisattva, Goodbye Girl, Africa, Could You be Loved, Instrumental, Georgy Porgy, I Won’t Hold You Back, Rosanna, Hold the Line. Encore: Home of the Brave.

It’s started to cloud up by the time Toto hit the stage. Halfway through the hour-long set, it was pouring. That’s probably the only real drawback to this festival. I’ve seen it all—blazing heat, rain, wind, mild temperatures-all in the same day. As a matter of fact, that could describe today (by the time it ended).

Opening with Steely Dan’s “Bodhisattva” from an upcoming covers record, Toto proved to have the most musical chops on this day. No surprise really, with Steve Lukather, David Paice and Simon Phillips in the band.

Original vocalist Bobby Kimball has been back in the fold for years now, and Toto simply isn’t the same band without him. The group ran through a few covers and most of the big hits, with Paice singing “Africa” and Lukather acing “I Won’t Hold You Back.” Kimball sang most of the rest, as well as the set-closing “Hold the Line,” easily one of the best songs of the festival.

The rain seemed to amuse the band the way it amused Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump. The band turned it up and trudged on, with the rain having little affect on the band’s performance. Another band that rocks a lot harder live than on record (or disc).

CINDERELLA

SET LIST: Somebody Save Me, Push Push, The Last Mile, Night Songs, Fallin’ Apart at the Seams, Heartbreak Station, Coming Home, Shelter Me, Nobody’s Fool, Gypsy Road. Encore: Don’t Know What You Got (Til its Gone), Shake Me.

It is now time for a real rock band. A sleazy, sweaty, mascara-caked, longhaired, tattooed rock group. No, Guns and Roses hasn’t reformed, but Cinderella came out looking like the past 15 years had simply been forgotten.

Wearing clothes that no other band (save for Poison) would be caught dead in, Cinderella shook the place (its raining again) up with an hour-long set that sounded just like the band did in 1986.

Tom Keifer proved to be quite the musician, playing guitar, saxophone and piano, and complementing each song with his whiskey-soaked, gritty vocals. Guitarist Jeff Labar still looks like he hasn’t slept since Kansas City, and drummer Fred Coury is still the standard issue rock drummer. Only bassist Eric Brittingham has changed his look, going from glam-rock blonde to black-haired biker dude with cowboy hat. The band played all the biggies and sounded great. Now its time for a new album.

POISON

SET LIST: Look What the Cat Dragged In, Talk Dirty to Me, Ride the Wind, Squeeze Box, I Want Action, Emperor’s New Clothes, Something to Believe In, Your Mama Don’t Dance, Every Rose Has Its Thorn, Unskinny Bop, Fallen Angel, Rock and Roll All Night. Encore: Nothing but A Good Time.

I remember when Poison was a joke onstage (many would argue that the boys were a joke offstage as well, but that’s another story). I recall a show in Sacramento with Tesla that was smoking for about 45 minutes until C.C. Deville’s 20-minute guitar solo sent the crowd home early to listen to Tesla in the parking lot. I saw C.C. drunker than any of the stories on Behind the Music. I saw the band with Ritchie Kotzen and they didn’t sound like Poison at all. This is all very well documented now, and most people thought the group would blow up during the first reunion tour.

I can happily report now that Poison is a machine onstage. A frickin’ machine. I have seen the band four times since the re-formation and it has gotten better every single time. Poison was easily the best received band at this festival and put on the weekend’s best performance.

The stage has been the same for years, and complete with pyro, flames, smoke and all the bells and whistles, Poison has taken over for Kiss in “let’s blow up something every single song” department. That was the plan back in the 80’s as well, but back then, the drugs, the egos and the clear fact that the band couldn’t play as well as it does now had most rock fans spitting out Poison. The group is very easy to swallow now.

Bret Michaels is one of the best frontmen in rock and delivered the line of the weekend. “Bands should be kissing your ass to play here,” Michaels said as he thanked the crowd for the reception. Guitarist Deville has learned that less is more (especially during his very nice, short solo), but is still a complete maniac onstage. Bassist Bobby Dall and drummer Rikki Rockett anchored the rhythm section and kept things together as Michaels and Deville went crazy up front.

All the hits, the bombs, the fire and the lights made this the best hour of the festival. Now, if festival management is listening, they should be booking Poison right now for its fourth RockFest in five years in 2003.

MEATLOAF

SET LIST: Life is A Lemon, Crazy ‘Bout a Mercury, Lawyers, Guns and Money, Tear Me Down, All Revved Up and No Place to Go, I’d Do Anything For Love, Paradise By the Dashboard light, Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad, You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth, Bat Out of Hell. No Encore.

Most of the crowd thought that Meatloaf would not be able to follow Poison. But like the troopers they are, the entire crowd was ready when Meatloaf came on at 11 p.m. Sunday night. After four days, 18 bands (plus four others who open each day and play the side stages during each set break), 100 degree heat, wind, rain and more beer than any crowd should be able to consume, the crowd was still ready for Meat. The question was—would Meat be ready for them?

It sounded like he would fail early, when the opening “Life is a Lemon” sounded like the p.a. had become a lemon. But the sound guy saved the band (and his job) by fixing the mix for “Crazy ‘Bout a Mercury,” and from there on out, Meatloaf proved to be the perfect foil for the weary crowd. Relying heavily on his theatrical background and his crack back-up band, Meatloaf ran through most of Bat Out of Hell and a number of lesser tunes from his back catalog during his 100 minutes onstage.

That’s right, it was 12:40 a.m. Monday morning when the festival finally ended in a downpour with “Bat Out of Hell” ringing in the crowd’s ears. Before that, the highlights included “Paradise By the Dashboard Light,” as Meat sparred with lovely back up vocalist Patty Russo during the songs’ middle section, a slowed-down “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” and a smoking “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth.” Bassist Kasim Sulton (from Utopia) anchored the back-up band, as Meat worked every inch of the stage. I’ve had it. I am now exhausted from the festival and writing this 5,000-word extravaganza for you, but rest assured I’ll be back next year for more.