What do you call a sexagenarian rocker embarking on a two-month stint under the bright lights of Las Vegas?  The American musician who gained sustained global popularity with his rock opera Bat Out of Hell turns 66 Friday, and begins his Rocktellz & Cocktails residency at Planet Hollywood on Thursday night. There will be booze, costumes and plenty of Loaf's biggest hits, including "I Would Do Anything for Love". As Loaf told Robin Leach (!): "You’re going to hear all the highs and all the lows. I won’t hold back on anything. It’s the good and the bad and the ugly.”  Speaking of good, bad and ugly, here's Meat Loaf's rundown:  Loaf met his longtime collaborator Jim Steinman during a theater production of More Than You Deserve, and the rest is majestic rock opera history. The going wasn't easy at first: Loaf was super insecure about his music industry chops, and it took the duo a while to find a label smart enough to sign them with their record Bat Out of Hell.  Luckily, this was around the time that Loaf landed a supporting role in Rocky Horror Picture Show (heard of it?). His character is killed and then served as dinner, but his music met a better fate: Loaf convinced the film's producers to feature 'Paradise by the Dashboard Light' as the trailer song.  This savvy move by Steinloaf, along with promotion of other record songs Bat Out of Hell and Two Out of Three Ain't Bad helped push the album along. Eventually, it became a sustained global hit, selling 43m copies and becoming one of the top-selling albums of all time. Steinman has also written songs for Cher – including Dead Ringer for Love – Barry Manilow and Celine Dion, whose 1996 hit 'It's All Coming Back to Me Now' is basically 'I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)' with better lighting.  To capture the true beauty of the Steinloaf collaboration, you have to visit the corners of the internet where intense musical nerds dwell. And so, their partnership is best captured by the webmaster of the Almost Complete Archive of Meat Loaf & Jim Steinman:  Full musical accord is evidently shared by the two partners in both thematic and stylistic interpretation. Both men are intensely romantic and their message is clear. Steinman's lyrics explore the many regions of man's desire. Meat Loaf responds at gut level, echoing the changing shades of the love dream.  Personally I think this cover say it all:  If it were anyone else, this next one wouldn't bode well for a Vegas show, but it must be said: this fairly recent performance of 'Paradise' is just mesmerizing in how awful it is. This horrible combination of polyester wig and incoherent warbling is worth the 10 minutes you'll spend gawking at it, because the whole thing is pure entertainment:  The whole thing is so amazing that I can almost guarantee you'll watch it again at some point in your life, which prompts this serious existential Meat question: Is everything Meat Loaf does an equal mix of good, bad and ugly? Isn't a bad performance executed brilliantly as worth seeing as a good one? Game changer.  Again, let's use the term 'ugly' loosely here: Loaf's portrayal of Robert Paulson in the movie adaptation of Fight Club was pathetic and sad, and also unforgettable. As a former bodybuilder whose excessive use of steroids landed him with testicular cancer and gynecomastia – a set of breasts. He gets shot in the head, continuing the trend of murdered Meat Loaf characters, but Loaf provides the only bit of humanity we see during the execution of Tyler Durden's Project Mayhem.  One qualm I have with Meat Loaf was that he originally named the female vocalist in 'I Would Do Anything for Love' as an uncredited Mrs. Loud. Rude. Vocals were originally sung by English singer Lorraine Crosby, from North East England and lip synced in the epic video by Dana Patrick. But then his most famous co-vocalist Patti Russo came along to perform live vocals. So here's to you, Lorraine Crosby, the literal unsung hero of Meat Loaf. Good luck with your solo career.  Maybe I have Stockholm Sydrome after a few hours of heavy Loaf research, but this Las Vegas show has to be worth seeing. Whatever happened to passionate, recklessly indulgent musicians? There are performers like Miley Cyrus, whose VMA performance was very bad and very ugly, but not even remotely good. Other musicians who make a living touring, like Mumford and Sons, are so good they're bland because they're not ugly at all. And then there's Britney Spears, who begins her own stint at Planet Hollywood soon after Meat Loaf is finished with his residency. In my professional opinion she stands a chance at hitting all three marks, but she'd better up her wig game.
The man who would do anything for love starts a Vegas stint Thursday night, a day before turning 66. Happy Birthday Mr Loaf!