Steve Steinman’s Meat Loaf Story – Opera House, Buxton

Steve Steinman appeared on Stars in Their Eyes over 25 years ago as musical genius Meat Loaf, and since then has made a pretty impressive career out of being a real “Dead Ringer” for the star.

Tonight’s Show “The Meat Loaf Story”, features a live band (an incredible band that Meat Loaf himself would be envious of), 3 beautiful backing singers/dancers, and Steve himself. Covering the obvious classics such as Bat out of Hell, Two out of Three Ain’t Bad and Paradise by the Dashboard Light, as well as some lesser known (At least by me!) hits such as Left in Dark. When Steve wasn’t on the stage, either the band played instrumental versions of the songs, or the girls sang songs on their own such as All Coming Back to me Now.

The first part of the show, I have to admit, I was a little uncomfortable. When playing Meaty, Steve was a bit sleazy, especially when he was all over one of the girls who was dressed as a cheerleader and looked about half his age!

Thankfully, however, he eventually takes off the awful black wig, stops the slightly over the top acting, and swaps his cringe-worthy fake American voice for a much better (and instantly hilarious) broad northern accent. As soon as this change happens, the show instantly becomes amazing.

Don’t get me wrong, Steinman’s voice throughout is amazing – Meat Loaf should hire him to record an album for him! There were times that I had to remind myself that this was live and it was not actually Meat Loaf on stage.

That said, it was very obvious in a few points that the show was live. There were a few, small but noticeable mistakes, however Steve handled them with his own brand of humour and had the audience eating out of his hands. When Steve comes out of character and interacts with the audience, he is incredibly funny and so likeable – if he were to just sit on the stage and talk, I think we would all be mesmerised.

The vocal skills of these three dancers / backing singers were incredible and when they were singing their stage presence was amazing.

Overall, we had such a great night listening to the music, but in terms of the show itself, I would suggest losing the cringe-worthy acting, stepping up the movement and adding a bit more chatter from Steve. the Mother-in-Law enjoyed it so much, she’s already booked for his next show – Vampires Rock!

Codie Louise Wright