POP MUSIC REVIEW : Meat Loaf: Too Long but Not Dull

What makes up a Meat Loaf?

First you take a beefy tenor and add plenty of bombast and a huge helping of outlandish, sentimental melodrama. Sprinkle in a little Vegas glitz and a pinch of sex, and presto! You have a rock star named after a casserole.

The one-of-kind singer has made a strong comeback after a short fling with fame in the late ‘70s, offering more of the same overheated, operatic rock ‘n’ roll. On Tuesday at the Wadsworth Theater, Meat Loaf served up a marathon show that was a marriage of musical theater and melodic, mainstream rock ‘n’ roll. The show was way too loud and far too long--nearly three hours--but never dull.

It often seemed like a Broadway parody of a rock show, featuring cliche-packed opuses like “Life Is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back” and “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are.” Meat Loaf was backed by a small band and scantily clad singer Patricia Rousseau, who played the love interest in the more theatrically staged numbers.

Though some of the show was annoyingly pompous and outrageously campy, parts of it weren’t all that bad. A few of those extended, theater-type pieces became strangely touching when Meat Loaf really turned on the histrionics and came on like the tormented hero of “Phantom of the Opera.”