Bat Out of Hell

At University I had a one-eighth share in a car.  It was a beige Morris 1800 with a dodgy petrol gauge.  It was a great tank of a car with a tiny horn that said, "Parp, parp, excuse me!" I would like to tell you that it had a beast of a name and drove like furious bat out of hell but it was a very sensible car for some very sensible students.  We called it The Fifty-One Mobile, after the corridor of the hall we lived in and we had a little book to fill in to calculate petrol and mileage, so that everything was fair. Whoever drove the car would take their own music, which was a refreshing change from Kate Bush on repeat that I had to listen to in Halls.

One day we were going out somewhere. It was during the day, so it might have been to the Wicked Woman, with the crooked chimney in the village with the stupidly long name for Sunday lunch or it might have just been a shopping trip to Woolco. I can't remember who was driving but it might have been the boy with the collection of cardigans that I coveted, who was never short of a girlfriend or two.  Whoever it was I know I thought they were cool and would have expected them to have good taste in music.  I was sitting in the back and I know that my friend with the long copper hair and button nose, who sparkled like pennies that boys wanted to collect was also in the car.  The music coming from the tape player was soothing and I slumped against the side of the car, singing along. 

The 51-Mobile looked a bit like this

"Oh will you hold me so close my knees go weak," I sang. "Oh, it must have been while you were kissing me."

The track changed.

"I got a taste of paradise........"

I was surprised.

"Have you got a love songs tape?" I asked.

My friend wrinkled her pretty little nose and laughed, her laugh that sounded like tinkling glass, "What?"

"Love songs?" He asked, "What makes you think I'd have love songs?"

I hesitated.....

"The words?" 

"No. It's Meatloaf!"

"Yeah, it's Bat out of Hell!"

"They're still love songs," I persisted, despite the laughter, "I mean it sounds like a musical.  There's all this unrequited love and angst."

"Oh Julia, you are so funny!"

Maybe I was funny, or just ahead of my time.

Yesterday, we saw the long awaited Bat the Musical.  Jim Steinman wrote the songs for Meatloaf and the album was released 1977.  I was completely out of touch with the kind of music that went on Top of the Pops as I went to music school on a Thursday night from 1974 until I went to university.  The composer worked on Sunset Boulevard/Whistle Down the Wind* with Andrew Lloyd Webber  and had wanted to turn make his own musical of Bat Out of Hell ever since.

Jim Steinman wrote everything for this musical and I think that might have been the mistake.  The story was confused and to understand what was going on you had to have read all the words being projected at the back of the stage before the show started.  It was a love story, though. Not that a lack of story mattered to most of the audience. 

The audience were absolutely the best thing about this musical. It was a delight to watch the London Coliseum packed full of people over 50, rocking it out and dancing in the aisles.  You might imagine that I didn't like the musical if I thought the audience were the best part but it's just that they were so entertaining.  

We were up on the back row, which was probably too far away to properly appreciate everything but the music was amazing.  It was an outstanding performance by Andrew Polec and the set design and choreography were something else.

It only runs until Tuesday, so unless you can get to Toronto you will have to get a move on if you are over 50 and fancy a spot of nostalgia and rocking in the aisles.

(*I just looked up which one it was and it turns out that Jim Steinman was already writing for musicals when he auditioned Meatloaf and then decided to write an album for him - it was a musical - I was right, even then!)