Raising ‘Hell’: That time Meat Loaf rode a horse in the Sheraton Centre ballroom

When the unhappy information got here of the demise of rock famous person Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday) on January 20, Toronto Star librarian Astrid Lange emailed me this gloriously outrageous picture from the archive. “(It was labelled) Meat Loaf on Horse in Ballroom,” she wrote, including, “Ah, the ’70s!”

“Meat was a wild man,” remembers Toronto broadcasting legend John Donabie, a outstanding voice from the ’60s by way of the ’90s on such radio stations as CHUM, Q107 and CFRB.

Over his illustrious profession, interviewing greats like John Lennon, Ry Cooder and Richie Havens, Donabie sat down with Meat Loaf a number of instances. “My first interview with him was at Q107 when his debut album, ‘Bat Out of Hell,’ broke,” Donabie says. “He was actually jovial, and he talked very intelligently about placing the album collectively, him and (songwriter) Jim (Steinman).”

Donabie and his spouse, Ala, went to see Meat Loaf at Massey Corridor on that first tour and had been blown away by his expertise and presence. “Oh my god, Meat was, wow!” Donabie is nearly confused when he recollects that dwell efficiency. “It was like watching a rock and roll play. Although he was a giant man, he moved throughout that stage like loopy, sweating like mad however by no means out of breath.”

“The album after all finally grew to become a monster vendor,” says Donabie. In reality, Bat Out of Hell stays one of many top-selling albums of all time, transferring greater than 43 million copies worldwide. “Having an eight-minute music – ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Mild’ – doing so properly was remarkable.”

When this picture was taken in 1979, “Bat Out of Hell” had been out for 2 years, and by that point had bought greater than one million copies in Canada alone. To have a good time, CBS Data, dad or mum firm of Meat Loaf’s label, Cleveland Worldwide, threw an enormous bash for the singer and some hundred of his greatest followers, together with an assortment of stomach dancers, lions, llamas, and CFL linebackers.

Meat Loaf arrived within the Sheraton Centre ballroom in downtown Toronto astride a horse named Freddie, donned a Maple Leafs jersey proffered by Burton Cummings and drank pink cocktails from coconut shells beside an enormous ice sculpture spelling out his title.

An epitome of rock-star extra, Meat Loaf was quoted within the Star on the time as saying, “Is that this an excellent occasion? I do not know. I don’t bear in mind the opposite ones!”

Ah, the ’70s certainly.