{"id":214611,"date":"2025-12-28T12:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T12:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/214611\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T12:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T12:48:10","slug":"the-night-meat-loaf-blew-up-an-entire-irish-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/214611\/","title":{"rendered":"The night Meat Loaf ‘blew up an entire Irish town’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Punches, a painful stage-dive and a ‘peace concert’ in ‘war-zone’ Belfast – Bat Out of Hell rocker Meat Loaf’s wild 1990 Irish tour\"MeatMeat Loaf performing in London, 1987(Image: Michael Putland\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

When US rocker Meat Loaf<\/a> undertook his chaotic tour of rural Ireland in 1990 he had a series of narrow escapes.<\/p>\n

He was hospitalised after falling off a stage, narrowly avoided being punched by a security guard and played Belfast at the height of the conflict.<\/p>\n

His 1977 album Bat Out Of Hell was one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, but at a career crossroads the rock star found himself playing some of Ireland\u2019s most unlikely venues.<\/p>\n

RTE<\/a> documentary Meat Loaf: From Hell and to Connaught revealed how promoter Tommy Swarbrigg took a gamble by inviting Meatloaf to tour Ireland.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI didn\u2019t think I had the hope of getting Meatloaf. I got in touch with the record company and said, \u2018Who is managing Meat?\u2019<\/p>\n

Tommy Swarbrigg, Meatloaf and Geraldine Swarbrigg at Shannon Airport 1990<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came back to me a couple days later and said, \u2018Yeah, Meat would love to go\u2019. Sure I was delighted, I couldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

His nephew Kevin Swarbrigg, who was one of the crew, said: \u201cHe had a great knack of finding bands that had been big, had lots of hits, and hadn\u2019t been heard of in a while but were willing to come and tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

When his band – who feature throughout the documentary – did a soundcheck in the Golden Vale ballroom in Dundrum, Co Tipperary<\/a>, their high-voltage amps plunged the town into darkness.<\/p>\n

Amy Goff, who sang backing vocals in the tour where they played 21 venues in just 28 days, said: \u201cBoom, everything, went dark.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guitarist Pat Thrall remembers playing one venue where the stage buttressed the bar.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWe had to put the keyboards on the floor, but we went out and he would give it up every night.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tour started at the National Stadium where Swarbrigg recalled how the singer fell off the stage after a muted response from the audience.<\/p>\n

He recalled: \u201cHe said, \u2018No one is going to sit down when Meat goes on stage, I\u2019ll soon get them up\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"KevinKevin Swarbrigg with Meatloaf<\/p>\n

And he storms straight out to the front of the stage and straight off the stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeat disappeared fast. Stunned silence. The heart was pumping, I thought Meat was gone to heaven. Then the place thinks it\u2019s part of the show and goes mental.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was in terrible pain right through the show, never faltered. I brought him to hospital afterwards, and they kept him overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only time Swarbrigg saw the star \u201close his cool\u201d was in Carrickmacross, Co Monahan.<\/p>\n

Pat said: \u201cMeat started freaking out, I remember him saying, \u2018You got to move back, you\u2019re hurting people\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

After he was sprayed with beer twice, the singer jumped off the stage to confront a security guard who refused to control the crowd.<\/p>\n

When a furious Meat Loaf called the guard an \u201ca***ole\u201d, crew member Marty Mulligan intervened after the guard replied, \u2018F**k you, you a***ole\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was going \u2018Oh s**t he\u2019s going to hit Meatloaf\u2019. I was pushing Meatloaf back up on the stage. He swung and he hit me. I hit the speakers. I took the punch for Meatloaf.<\/p>\n

\"KevinKevin Swarbrigg in the RTE doc From Hell and to Connaught<\/p>\n

One of the most memorable nights came in Belfast which Thrall compared to Beirut.<\/p>\n

He said \u201cIt was a war zone, right? When we pulled into the city centre, I just remember all the soldiers, like, ready for action.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were like, \u2018Oh, OK, Who\u2019s this? Why is this bus full of people moving?\u2019 and just the guns being pointed at us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amy recalled hesitating to get off the bus to check into the Europa, which was one of the most bombed hotels in Europe at the time<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI thought to myself, what are we doing here?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are we actually here? This is crazy. This is insane.\u201d Despite the earlier tension, keyboard player Mark Alexander said: \u201cGreatest crowd ever. Unbelievable. It was a powerful gig.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drummer Chuck Burgi said he felt like they were rock \u2019n\u2019 roll ambassadors for peace. He added: \u201cLike you guys can come to our show and forget about the soldiers right outside and all that your cities had to deal with. That\u2019s a really good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the sell-out tour, Meat Loaf returned later that summer to headline F\u00e9ile in Thurles to a crowd of 25,000 people Burgi said: \u201cWe found our stride in the harshest of circumstances. In Ireland, we faced adversity and triumph.\u201d<\/p>\n

American rock singer Meat Loaf, circa 1990(Image: Luciano Viti\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

After the Irish tour, the band said momentum began to build again for the gothic superstar, who passed away in January 2022.<\/p>\n

Burgi said: \u201cHe saw it through to another massive success, fuelled in great part with the power and the success of the Irish tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the end of 1990, Meat Loaf had begun work on Bat Out of Hell II, which was released in 1993 and sold 15 million copies to catapult him to worldwide acclaim with the hit I\u2019d Do Anything for Love.<\/p>\n

The final word in the RTE documentary went to Tommy Swarbrigg who said: \u201cIt was a huge success. I couldn\u2019t have been more delighted for anybody. He was brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meat Loaf: From Hell and to Connaught will air on RT\u00c9 One and RT\u00c9 Player New Year\u2019s Eve at 6.30pm.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Punches, a painful stage-dive and a ‘peace concert’ in ‘war-zone’ Belfast – Bat Out of Hell rocker Meat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60,111547],"class_list":["post-214611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-meat-loaf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}