Meat Loaf famously caused a riot in the midlands when he came to Ireland back in the late '80s.
At one of his gigs in Moate in Westmeath, things got heated during an over-capacity show in the local community centre, which led to a row breaking out on the front row.
According to author and journalist Ronan Casey in 2017, who was at the gig, he recalled how fans threw a wheelchair at Meat Loaf after the rockstar stormed off the stage.
Meat Loaf could see crowds being pushed up at the barriers.
He pleaded with fans: “Please guys, can you move back a couple of steps?” as he finished ‘You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth’, saying “Someone’s gonna get hurt.”
But the crowd didn’t care, and empty beer cans began to be hurled around the venue, including shoes, which enraged the singer, who was more used to having women’s underwear thrown at him from afar in big arenas.
Meat Loaf was having none of it.
“Stop f***ing throwing things!” he roared, the glare in his eyes adding the necessary ‘or else’. The crowd didn’t care. Beer cans, glasses, bottles and whatever else was getting in the way of the increasingly crushed audience began to arrive on stage at various intervals before, during and after songs.
The odd unfinished cigarette also came up.
“I’m f***ing leaving here man,” Meat Loaf roared to his bodyguard Marty who stood by the side of the stage.
A white runner boot then hit the star.
“F*** you!” Meat Loaf roared back, and he promptly stormed off stage, micro-phone dropping to the floor in a screech of feedback.
But the band played on not knowing what was going on.
Backstage in the narrow hallway which trebled as dressing room, load-in point and backstage area, Meat Loaf was fuming. Like the band, the crowd hadn’t yet realised he’d stormed off stage so not only did his grand exit not achieve the desired effect, but most people there thought it was part of the show.
Supremely annoyed, he reluctantly went back on to about a thousand roars for Bat Out Of Hell.
As more debris rained on stage, Meat Loaf warned the crowd that he would “walk out the f***ing door” if they continued this sort of behaviour.
“I’m f***ing warning you,” he shouted as the band broke into Dead Ringer For Love, one of Meat Loaf's biggest Irish hits and one guaranteed to send the crowd doolally, “one more thing lands on this stage and I’m leaving.”
A couple of cans flew around the venue, but none landed on stage. They were joined in their flight by a couple of shoes and sneakers, only one of which landed on stage. But, fair play to him, Meat Loaf held firm, though the threat of storming off stage was still very real.
Meat Loaf’s Irish bodyguard Marty recalled at the time: “The lights caught something shiny and a second or two later I saw it. I thought ‘oh no… this is it… show’s over’…”
Flying through the air was… a wheelchair.
The chair flew directly over Marty’s head. He turned just in time to see Meat Loaf’s eyes swell with an unusual mixture of both fear and wonder.
The burly singer put out an arm and attempted to step back. The stage was so small he stumbled into the drum riser just as the wheelchair crashed onto the boards in front of him. In slow motion the big man appeared to fall, the empty wheelchair bouncing to his left, one wheel comically spinning.
Marty remembers the crowd cheering. He was sure he could make out someone screaming, but by the time he could react Meat Loaf had gotten to his feet, grabbed the mic, roared at the audience and hurled it at them as he stormed off. He boarded his tour bus within seconds and headed back to the hotel, leaving the rowdy crowds.
The tour resumed in Carlow the following night, where Meat Loaf personally thanked Irish bodyguard Marty for intervening the night before.
