I'm writing this being aware of that this post is in danger of being moved or deleted. I hope the admins / mods will allow me to express my thoughts in
this area of the forum.
It is hard to say this but I have decided to take a break from Meat Loaf and the MLUKFC. Maybe this is even going to be my last day as a Meat Loaf fan, after more than 20 years... 
I think most of you know why I've made this decision so I will not explain my motivation in detail as I do not intend to start an argument.
I have the feeling as if something in me has died today. Something that had been struggling to survive for some time but finally had to surrender.
This is a description of
what being a fan has meant to me over the years:
Imagine the 1980s, a weird little country, a teenage girl sitting in front of a crappy black & white TV. Suddenly a chubby, sweaty, long-haired guy in a frilly shirt and with an incredible voice shows up on the screen and sings an absolutely stunning song. From that moment on the girl knew that she wanted a Meat Loaf record. Too bad, she lived in that weird little country where it was hard to get cool music. Years later the weird little country became part of a larger, equally weird country. But now there were record stores! The girl hadn't forgotten how much she was impressed by the fat man with the great voice.
Needless to say, that girl was me. I became a vinyl junkie and was happy whenever I managed to find another rare Meat Loaf item. Damn, that
WTTN artwork just looks gorgeous in large format! Meat Loaf records - I believe I've never collected something else that eagerly.
I discovered the music of a crazy genius named Jim Steinman via Meat and I began to think that naked musclemen on motorbikes and giant bats were pretty cool. (Hey, I was a teenager!)
I have been to many rock concerts over the years but my first Meat Loaf show was the best of them all. Neither the Stones, Macca, Bruce, Neil Young, Ray Charles, etc. have ever impressed and moved me as much as Meat did on that that night. When attending further concerts, I was always surprised by how much effort he put into the performances.
You can see several shows in a row and they are all different. You never get the feeling as if it is the same routine every night.
Paradise, for example - one of his oldest songs, it has been performed live countless times over three decades, yet he always comes up with new ideas to make it sound fresh and make the audience laugh. You never have the feeling as if he's gotten tired of it. That is real art, in my opinion.
I later discovered that he also was a very talented actor.
Fight Club is one of the best movies ever made and I absolutely dig his performance in
Pelts. I have seen almost all of his movies so far. I've even watched a few pretty bad movies just because Meat appeared in them. He has saved some of them from being boring and made them watchable, even if he had just a minor role. For a movie maniac like me it is especially embarassing to admit that I even bought the
Bloodrayne DVD.
*looking for a place to hide the thing
*
Seeing him on TV shows usually puts a big fat smile in my face because because of his wit.
Okay, there have been songs that aren't my cup of tea, there have been shows at which he was in bad shape... and there was Uwe Boll
- it didn't bother me much. You can't please all the people all the time.
I did not defect in 2007 when even long-time die-hard fans tried to convince me that Meat was past his prime, that he had allegedly lost his voice and that it wouldn't make sense to spend money on concert tickets anymore. I just thought that that was not right. I couldn't turn my back on one of my favorite artists just because he was struggling with problems at that time. When I heard about what had happened in Newcastle, I was very sad and thought that he did not deserve to end his career like that - but somehow I could not believe that he would give up. Less than a year later he returned with some fantastic concerts. That's what I have always admired about him: His ability to overcome obstacles. He gets knocked down - he gets up again. I remember how much I enjoyed the Case De Carne shows, they were wonderful.
I really love
HCTB (with a few exceptions, as you know
) and until yesterday I desperately longed for hearing those songs live. I was very happy about the positive concert reviews and almost jealous of the people who have tickets for the U.S. tour.
At the moment I don't know if I will ever go to a Meat Loaf concert again. It's breaking my heart but there are circumstances I am no longer willing to cope with and that spoil something that used to be good.
Meat, in case you're reading this, I'd like to thank you for everything I've mentioned above. You are truly an awesome entertainer, there has been a lot of fun, I've met many great people and made some really good friends because of you. I'm grateful for that. I love you, man, but you're making it really damn tough for me. I wish you all the best for the tour and I hope it will be a huge success.
This is in fact a nice forum and I've enjoyed being a part of it. I think I will miss Pud's sarcasm, Wario's crazy spelling, absurd polls and nutty videos (just watch out that the cat doesn't take revenge one fine day, LOL), RadioMaster's comments on horror movies, duke knooby, mzsee, AndrewG's knowledge about music, Evil One's analysis of certain recordings, Julie's Bruce-related posts, the enthusiasm of the ladies...
Will I return? I don't know. The Sarge has to leave the battlefield for a while to give the scars a chance to heal.
"Goodbye my friends, it was good to know you, I hope you understand..."
*off to the pub for a Guinness*
