This happened back in November but I didn’t hear about it ANYWHERE so I guess it might have gone under the radar over here as it happened in Australia. And there are no videos of it on YouTube so maybe Meatloaf’s management tried to hush it up because it is really, really terrible. Like one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. Saying Meatloaf ruined his career – if he even has a career anymore? – might even be an understatement if that is possible.

Basically the Australians got Meatloaf over to come down and do a performance at the AFL grand final – which I guess is the final of the Australian Rules football league (?) and kind of like the equivalent of the Superbowl over there, and so obviously Meatloaf’s appearance at the pre-game show was a huge deal. It’s a pity he completely screwed it up though with one of the flattest, out of time and out of breath performances in history where at times he isn’t even singing the right words. It’s embarassing. Check out the full thing below. It starts off with some songs I’ve never heard so you probably want to skip about half way until the good stuff. Unless you want to watch it all, which is definitely worth checking out and laughing at for a bit:

Meatloaf argued that the reason his performance was so awful was because the AFL didn’t allow him a soundcheck and wouldn’t provide a live piano for him to play, meaning he had to sing to a tape in his earpiece, which apparently explains why some of his performance was out of time and flat. Yeah, sure, I guess that was to blame for him getting out of breath too. He also blamed the fact that the area allocated to him was too full of walls and concrete which meant that it was impossible for him to deliver a good performance. OK.

Now, I’m sympathetic to some of these sound issues and doing sound in an arena and getting it to sound good sounds (get it?) pretty hard to me, but I really don’t think that they would affect Meatloaf’s performance to the extent he’s implying. I mean there are parts of this video where he’s out of breath and forgetting to sing and gargling the worlds….surely that’s more because he’s a fat old man who can’t sing properly anymore rather than anything else?

If I was Meatloaf I would just give up, I mean those royalties from Bat Out of Hell are probably still trickling into his pockets every year, although I suppose getting paid $500,000 for a couple of songs might tempt you out for a show. But dude, do some practice beforehand yeah?