TRIBUTE bands can be hit and miss affairs, but Steve Steinman's shows have always been well worth seeing and his latest effort based on Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell albums is a real triumph.

The Meatloaf Trilogy

Ipswich Regent

TRIBUTE bands can be hit and miss affairs, but Steve Steinman's shows have always been well worth seeing and his latest effort based on Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell albums is a real triumph.

Meatloaf's music has always been something of a guilty pleasure. To some it seems to have always been slightly naff.

But, there are millions of people out there who like it, and on Saturday night there were hundreds at the Regent lapping up the sights and sounds that somehow seem set in the 1970s.

That's the genius of Steve Steinman. He doesn't just come on stage wearing a Meatloaf costume with a band going through the motions and performing the best-known songs.

He gives people a real show, complete with lights, pyrotechnics and dancing girls.

And the sound is superb. For those of us who are used to hearing Meatloaf's music as on our in-car CD player turned down to a reasonable volume, it was really refreshing to see and hear it performed as it should be - on stage and with the sound turned up.

Steinman sings as himself, he's a bald northerner rather than a long-haired Texan, but he has a real respect for the music and a determination to please the audience.

We could have done with a little less of the northern club humour, but musically the show was faultless.

Meatloaf's albums all feature, largely unheralded, female vocals, and Emily Clark showed she has a fine voice. It's All Coming Back To Me Now was a real highlight.

The show finished, of course, with the iconic Bat Out of Hell which saw the audience leaving on a high.

Steve Steinman and his team will be back in the autumn with their other show, Vampires Rock. The audience is already looking forward to it.

Paul Geater.