Dead Ringer tour concert
 

With the board being very quiet and Meat recovering and out of the spotlights, I just try to keep the Loaf thing going ;)

Now a near complete dead ringer concert compilation. Just for fun. If you need your Meat-shot, this might be interesting enough for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGkYnSO14cQ&t

Damn, seeing that makes me wish they got back Ted Neeley to sing Skull of your country and had started Braver with that and leading into Revels. Would have been an awesome opener I reckon. Then wham-o into Braver than we are.

Especially as Ted (seen elsewhere in a thread by me) is still more than capable of delivering vocally.

Only nitpick I have is that, on every bootleg I've seen, "Skull of Your Country" was the opener, a prelude to the events that followed, not the second song in. ;)

Yup, but for continuing reasons I had to put it 2nd. The Bat video has Meat coming to stage in his coat, taking of the coat during the song. Skull, Meat is not wearing a coat at all. It just wouldn't look right video wise. But yes Skull was the opening :cool:

I also replaced GLHFBOU. ;)

Thanks for posting this it flows very well, excellent work. I think this band had the best overall harmonizing to back up Meat since his voice was still a bit shaky at times. I always thought he sounded surprisingly good on the commercially released video, but have suspected there may have been overdubs, especially considering what happened (or didn't happen) at Dortmund on that tour. I still have PTSD from watching that show :D

What did or didn’t happen at Dortmund?! I didn’t know about that one!

Love this era. He’s a force but is also super vulnerable voice-wise.

Where do I even begin? Meat seems uh, impaired I suppose. He changes shirts on camera and apparently his fly won't zip so he stuff his scarves in his pants and goes crowd surfing during a version of something resembling "Gimme Shelter", they play a part of "Paradise" then just stop with no vocals. Meat stumbles over the lyrics on "2 Out of 3" and the backing singers jump in and sing more of the song than I have ever heard any of them do. That is just going off memory. The whole thing is on Youtube. It is just bizarre to me, but others may like it. As always your mileage may vary.

I assume this is the dortmund video mentioned above - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CK-IpayoHE&t=2825s

Wow, that was wild!!

There are a lot of amazing freeze frames in that show. Meat looks like a possessed maniac (around 53:29) and around 52:45 looks as if the crew interrupted his crowd surfing and he looks mad. The whole thing is just so trippy. I don't think I have ever seen a performance quite like that from Meat. If I had to base my opinion off that show I would assume that he probably died at some point not long after, likely while on stage.

A lot of Bat-era performances give me the same thought - that you wouldn't expect that guy on stage to live much longer. Just listen to some of those early shows, where he's ripping his vocal chords apart during the songs. Ouch. No wonder he lost his voice around that time. But that 1981 performance is fascinating, in a crazy way. We're not used to seeing Meat like that.

I supposed a lot of Non-disclosure agreements were signed or we'd have some wild stories and maybe a tell-all book or two. Just the stories from Steinman I believe it was him, that Meat tried to kill himself by impaling himself on something attached to a truck. I know Meat has admitted to some imbibing from time to time and I suspect just getting him on stage was a challenge and trying to control him was impossible when he was like he was in that Dortmund show. I always wondered what he says in Steve's ear when he walks out on stage, at one point it looked like they were going to get "romantic" LOL. Also seeing Meat at that weight leaning on band members must have been fun while you are trying to play. I know at one show Meat dropped from the ceiling as an angel during this tour. Wild times.

Thank God, I didn't want to be the first to point it out for fear of being labeled insane, but I swear I could see him whispering "I love you" at least once or twice while Steve looked increasingly annoyed/disturbed/both, but whatever his expression said, he seemed to be making every effort to focus on just playing bass and getting through that moment.

Meat doesn't like to dwell on the drink & drugs, and that's fair enough as there's plenty else to concentrate upon. But it's good that this low point came relatively early in his career - and that within a year or two his performances were so much better (most of the rest of the 80s and 90s were a virtually non-stop spell of great shows). Most of the time we'll see the man giving his all, rather than here where he was virtually incapable of giving anything. But the kind of personality and performer that he is makes him magnetic and fascinating to watch, whatever state he's in. Not sure the audience at the time would have agreed, much less the band.

You've probably all seen this article before, but it's an interesting read and just a glimpse at that wild period:

https://www.loudersound.com/features...-in-the-belfry

You are very right. I do think though out of most rock "stars" (I know Meat dislikes the word) Meat's story is inspirational. We know future events up until now. He was a huge success, pretty much lost it all, never stopped fighting and trying. He put his all into it and made it back to the top and is a legend. He did not stay like he was and did not end up dying on stage like he looked as though he would. If there is any merit in the Dortmund video it would be that this same guy got himself together and went on to be a Grammy winner with a huge #1 album and #1 song worldwide and has a multi-decade career.

I was labeled insane years ago :D so I didn't mind. I once read a snippet that claimed Meat and his band stormed through a hotel naked during this time frame. It was in a rock magazine way long ago so it was probably total BS or some exaggeration of some "rock star" behavior. There were stories of sweaty Meat being ripped out of his clothes and put direct on oxygen after shows, I think maybe even Karla mentioned it once.

Too right. Most of us (not just rock stars) have had our wild times, and many we'd prefer not to think about again, but it's how we rose up afterwards that matters, where we are now, and where we're heading. Meat did very well after those days. That's all any of us can hope for.

Adje you are my favourite fan by far. Love your videos. One day if you get a chance can put together all the less known song that meat played live over the years.
Re the German concert that is as rock n roll as you can get, just brilliant. Always imagined that was how Meat really was, just needed a bottle to totally take inhabitions away. I would have been scared if there but bet not a single person walked out. Only bore on that stage was Davy Johnston. That woman who found a safe spot infront of the crowd haha!