Indeed Meat's setlist didn't change really and that might have been a bit frustrating for die hard fans who would have wanted to hear some rarer songs.
At the same time I often think to the two back to back Springsteen shows I saw in 2016. 1 in Coventry and 1 at Wembley a few days later. Radical set changes. Coventry was awesome, one of the best shows I've seen Springsteen do by far. Wembley sucked, the set didn't flow at all was too much interrupted by sign requests and ended up with a lot of stop - start in tempo and thus it didn't seem to get exciting. Very strange for a Springsteen show with a band where I thought Coventry he had nailed things. Instead Wembley was like watching him solo which I also found boring in the past. If you'd only seen him at Wembley you could have come away with quite a "meh" reaction I think. The songs were great but they sort of felt cobbled together. There is a radical difference between starting a long encore section with Travelin' Band or Jungleland!
Sometimes sticking to a pre-defined setlist might be safer and appear a bit boring from the outset, but it DOES ensure people see you at your best probably. Meat thought a lot about that I believe. I'm not sure it was ever necessary to actually do Bat in its entirety in order but it did give people a chance to hear the by far most famous album by Meat without omissions. Pretty special.
Did he get it right for everyone? Probably not. But I suspect the majority was often entertained and didn't just hear a random collection of songs which could have left many puzzled as to where the hell did they come from.
When Meat ventured too long away from the popular standards such as doing the 4 new HCTB songs in a row, it simply did not work for 90% of the audience.
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