Raising ‘Hell’: That time Meat Loaf rode a horse in the Sheraton Center ballroom

When the sad news came of the death of rock superstar Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday) on January 20, Toronto Star librarian Astrid Lange emailed me this gloriously outrageous photo from the archive. “(It was labeled) Meat Loaf on Horse in Ballroom,” she wrote, adding, “Ah, the ’70s!”

“Meat was a wild guy,” remembers Toronto broadcasting legend John Donabie, a prominent voice from the ’60s through the’ 90s on such radio stations as CHUM, Q107 and CFRB.

Over his illustrious career, interviewing greats like John Lennon, Ry Cooder and Richie Havens, Donabie sat down with Meat Loaf several times. “My first interview with him was at Q107 when his debut album, ‘Bat Out of Hell,’ broke,” Donabie says. “He was really jovial, and he talked very intelligently about putting the album together, him and (songwriter) Jim (Steinman).”

Donabie and his wife, Ala, went to see Meat Loaf at Massey Hall on that first tour and were blown away by his talent and presence. “Oh my god, Meat was, wow!” Donabie is almost at a loss for words when he recalls that live performance. “It was like watching a rock and roll play. Even though he was a big man, he moved across that stage like crazy, sweating like mad but never out of breath. ”

“The album of course eventually became a monster seller,” says Donabie. In fact, Bat Out of Hell remains one of the top-selling albums of all time, moving more than 43 million copies worldwide. “Having an eight-minute song – ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’ – doing so well was unheard of.”

When this photo was taken in 1979, “Bat Out of Hell” had been out for two years, and by that time had sold more than a million copies in Canada alone. To celebrate, CBS Records, parent company of Meat Loaf’s label, Cleveland International, threw a huge bash for the singer and a few hundred of his biggest fans, along with an assortment of belly dancers, lions, llamas, and CFL linebackers.

Meat Loaf arrived at the Sheraton Center ballroom in downtown Toronto astride a horse named Freddie, donned a Maple Leafs jersey proffered by Burton Cummings and drank pink cocktails from coconut shells beside a massive ice sculpture spelling out his name.

An epitome of rock-star excess, Meat Loaf was quoted in the Star at the time as saying, “Is this a good party? I have no idea. I do not remember the other ones! ”

Ah, the ’70s indeed.