With Meat Loaf having finished his last Steinman-related project in Braver than We Are, there is really just one work left in covering Jim Steinman’s career, but it is his life’s work. In 2017, Jim Steinman’s Bat out of Hell: The Musical opened, presenting essentially a jukebox musical version of most of Steinman’s most famous work set to tell a story that has elements of his past never-really-completed projects The Dream Engine and Neverland. I have often described his career as a constant attempt to rewrite The Dream Engine after its 1969 performance while Steinman was in college, and this musical is essentially the product of those rewrites.

Meat Loaf would do plenty of publicity for the musical, and frankly he was great at it. It would often be described as “his” musical. But it wasn’t. It was Jim Steinman’s, and it was right there in the title. While he didn’t actually correct people who called it his musical, Meat Loaf did consistently put a lot of focus on Steinman, who was rather absent from publicity. I can only speculate, but I attribute his absence to health. And I suspect that Meat Loaf did the publicity he did out of loyalty to his longtime partner-in-crime with whom he had become increasingly close in recent years.

I haven’t been able to see the show performed. I live in the middle of nowhere and don’t have money for taking trips. I’m going to try to explain the story as I go this time, because it’s really Steinman’s in a way that Tanz der Vampire never was–it’s possible to see a lot of his mind at work even in the non-musical parts. In order to explain things that aren’t evident in the cast album that I do have at my disposal, I’m relying heavily on this script. It doesn’t entirely match up with the cast recording, so I’m going to have to make some guesses, too, I’m sure.

We open with three members of The Lost–Strat, Scherzzo, and Valkyrie–cleaning a motorcycle. Because it definitely wouldn’t be Bat out of Hell without opening on a motorcycle.

Strat, played by Andrew Polec (Who would also appear as Baal, the lead character whom Steinman himself originally played, in a 50th anniversary production of The Dream Engine a couple of years later.), is our main character–the sexy, violent, young gang leader who essentially acts as the Romeo figure to a play that has evolved into more of a Romeo & Juliet adaptation over time. He takes the spotlight and delivers “Love and Death and the American Guitar,” which is in fact the same speech Steinman delivered in “Love and Death and an American Guitar” on Bad for Good and in “Wasted Youth” on Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell. Polec has an endearing quality of seeming very youthful in his version, but his delivery is (at least for me) not as strong as Steinman’s.

The gang then rides to the town square, parks outside Falco Towers, and begins to protest. What begins as carrying placards quickly turns violent. During the next song, Falco (the villain) sends out his militia against the Lost and they fight. Falco’s teenaged daughter, Raven, sneaks out to watch the fight. And, this being a musical, Strat’s shirt gets torn off and he and Raven fall in love at first sight. Falco sees them staring at one another as most of the Lost escape, leaving behind Tink, Blake, and Strat. Tink hits Falco in the face with a bottle and Falco responds (logically) by ripping off his own shirt. (I assume that he shouts, “Whatcha gonna do, brother!” most nights, but that’s not noted in the script.) An altercation of words ensues where Falco warns Strat to stay away from Raven, Raven is taken back inside, and finally Falco shouts threats at the three Lost members as they run away.

As for the song itself, while it’s titled “All Revved up with No Place to Go/Wasted Youth,” it’s actually a mix of “All Revved up with No Place to Go,” “Everything Louder than Everything Else,” and even a small section of “The Storm.” The arrangements are actually even bigger than the original recordings, adding trumpets, saxophones (which did occasionally appear before but are more common and prominent now), and trombones.

We begin with a verse of “All Revved up with No Place to Go” sung by the Lost with Strat in the lead (though they are all singing) with largely rewritten lyrics that relate to the nature of the Lost, with Strat describing himself as “Just a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, black-hearted boy/Killing time until the end of the world.” This verse is about three times as long as any in the original song, but accompanied now with a breakneck rhythm (that’s actually REAL DRUMS–no drum machines!), some crunchy guitars, and a stinging horn/saxophone section that all combine to give it a propulsion and volume that the original recording doesn’t match. After the verse there is a chorus of “All Revved up with No Place to Go” that really only changes the music by making the trumpets and saxophones more prominent. A short verse reusing some lyrics from “Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young” follows before another chorus.

Then there is a sudden shift to an instrumental passage that’s an adaptation of a section from “The Storm,” culminating in some lightning-speed piano with squealing guitars on top.

The rhythm then basically breaks down and reconfigures itself into the “Wasted Youth” part of “Everything Louder than Everything Else” but with trumpet and trombone replacing the synths. The “Wasted! Youth!” shouts and the lead melody and lyrics match the original. Falco, played by Rob Fowler, delivers a perspective-altered verse “They got a file on you/And it’s a mile long/And they say that they’ve got all of the proof/That you’re just another case of arrested development/And just another wasted youth/They say that you’re in need of some radical discipline/They say you gotta face the truth/That you’re just another case of arrested development/And just another wasted youth” and then he and Strat do a call-and-response version of the next section of “Everything Louder than Everything Else” as the former tells the latter to grow up while the latter remains defiant. This section is really only distinguishable from Meat Loaf’s original from the horns replacing the synths and the voices, but here it’s basically acting as a new bridge to “All Revved up with No Place to Go,” which works really well.

After another short instrumental breakdown (this one not easily recognizable but much shorter), “All Revved up with No Place to Go” kicks in again and the Lost delivers a breakneck final version of the chorus. The saxophone and the horns become more prominent and intensely loud, leading the absolutely booming ending.

Polec has a fine voice but here, as in many places we will see, he seems to be rather aggressively mimicking Meat Loaf’s delivery from the original recording. Fowler is the only other person who really gets time for us to hear him, and he isn’t quite as beholden to Meat Loaf’s delivery even though he isn’t terribly different either. I wouldn’t say that either seems terribly noteworthy. However, I can pay their performances a compliment in saying that I don’t miss Meat Loaf’s voice in this recording.

I was never a big fan of “All Revved up with No Place to Go” in its original form, but I love this version. Even ignoring the parts from other songs in it, the faster pace and heavier, louder overall sound work really well. Also, there’s something great about the transitions here–they don’t sound like shifts in the music that come out of left field but somehow the short sections that I called “reconfiguring” just feel like it’s sort of moving a couple of pieces around to switch directions, and it strikes a great middle ground between being a wild, sudden juxtaposition and being an overwrought transition. It’s a good sign for the rest of the show.

Notes

• Tobias Sammett, the bandleader and lead singer of Avantasia and Edguy, said that the only discussion he ever had with someone from Steinman’s camp was about being in “his musical,” which I’m guessing means this show (though since he is German, perhaps the German version of it). He said that he turned it down because he wasn’t going to try to replace Meat Loaf (which is why I feel like it’s probably this show and not Tanz der Vampire). (You can read about that here, though there isn’t really much more.) He did not elaborate about which part he would have played but I assume his celebrity means one of the main roles. He would have been 40 at the time of this release while Polec was 28 (playing an 18-year-old in Strat) and Fowler was 43 (playing a pretty nondescript Falco), so Falco probably makes more sense. I would love to hear that.
• Steinman at least didn’t use drum machines as just a replacement for real drums, but I am still glad to see the drum machines gone for a final release–they are a plague on the world.
• The first time I heard this show, I was instantly struck by how surprising it is that the it didn’t open with “Bat out of Hell.” However, “Bat out of Hell” really fits better where it is and, in this form, “All Revved up with No Place to Go” is a really strong opener with all the right energy.
• I know that other Steinmaniacs are going to react with horror to my poking fun at the story, but I’m still going to do it. I’m also curious just how much sense it makes if you’re not a Steinmaniac who already knows much of what’s happening. I haven’t really done a serious dive into the story before, so I’m using this project’s final posts partly to explore that question. Right now, it’s not bad–there’s an angry gang and some sort of dictator and of course the gang leader and the dictator’s daughter are in love. That’s how musicals work, you know.