While Hall and Oates' opening-night concert at Summerfest was a magnet for twenty-somethings whose interest in the band might have been, perhaps, less than completely sincere, Meat Loaf's concurrent Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard performance was happily devoid of irony seekers. That's in part because there's never been a popular web series lampooning Meat Loaf, but also because his grandiose opera rock is a more winking kind of kitsch than Hall and Oates' yacht rock, less ripe for ironic enjoyment since the performer is already so in on (and so masterfully in control of) the joke.
A disciple of musical theater, Michael Lee Aday has always played a character on stage, but over the years the tenor of that character has changed: He's no longer Meat Loaf, the hard-rock romantic, as much as he is The Guy Still Playing Meat Loaf After All These Years, and he's settled into that new role with typically good humor. Looking as fit and healthy as you could realistically expect a 63-year-old Meat Loaf to look, the sequin-shirted entertainer peppered his stage banter with “I'm too damn old for this” F-bombs, at one point cursing his 27-year-old keyboardist for his youth. When he sat on a chair to sing “Two Out of Three Ain't Bad,” he assured the audience it was for effect, chastising the fucking newspaper writers who've suggested he just needed to sit down, but he demonstrated plenty of vitality on long, sweaty renditions of “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth,” “I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)” and “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” After all these years, Meat Loaf is still in fighting shape.
