I think there's a number of reasons why Meat and Bruce get compared fairly frequently on this forum.
Obviously there a number of members here who are fans of both (myself included).
There's the musical links between the two ... Max and Roy from the ESB played on Bat, and Steinman's BFG and other projects, Roy was involved on Bat II (in fact Meat has creditted Roy with being one fo the key people in making a Bat record) , as well as the fact that soime of the NLE members over the years have had links to Bruce too ... Mark Alexander toured with Bruce's guitarist Little Steven during the Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul era in the late 80's, Ray Anderson has played with Bruce too). In terms of the Bat / Born To Run comparisons, both were recorded in a very similar timeframe and the influences on each other can clearly be heard ... my opinion is that those influences come from the playing of Max and Roy (Roy on piano in particular) rather than either Bruce or Jim/Meat taking influence from each other.
Also from my own point of view a lot of Meat's (especially the Steinman penned material) and Bruce's music deals with the same sort of themes and has the same cinematic storytelling quality. Both their most recent albums have very similar themes albeit approached in completely different styles.
They are two completely different artists on stage though I think, seeing a Bruce and the ESB concert is almost like seeing the worlds best bar band, there's a real party atmosphere on stage and in the crowd, Meat's stage show is slightly different in it's intensity, is more polished almost more like a West End or Broadway production but no less intense and enjoyable.
|