Friday, August 29, 2008

"Watch out for the cycle path? I thought you said beware of the psychopath"

Another email from James P:

You may remember a story a few months back about a Meat
Loaf impersonator getting threats from Meat Loaf himself, over his tourbus's similarity to Meat Loaf's own.

It gets worse for the poor chap.

He's currently in a legal battle with a working men's club where he was due to play. He refused to go onstage after his tribute bus got stuck up a cycle track where staff had directed him. According to the article, "Club staff also demolished a fence and took down a bollard in a bid to get him to the venue, but to no avail". It's not clear whether that's referring to the bus or the Meat Loaf.

Anyhow, he's now taking the club to court for his £800 fee. Unfortunately they in return have successfully counter-sued for £1950 in lost ticket sales. This is on top of the £1000 he was forced to spend on respraying the tourbus to keep Meatloaf happy.

Is there an unluckier tribute artist out there (besides the Gary Glitter acts, obviously)? I don't know of any. Surely this is PR gold for the real Meatloaf though, who can now claim that he's put some sort of demonic curse on the bus? I reckon a simple statement to the press saying "Meatloaf wishes him the best of luck with the next MOT, as it'd be terrible if it failed..." would do wonders for his image.

James ends up suggesting they never had this trouble with Vengabus, although to be fair, the Venga Boys never got the lucrative Thirsk and Sowerby Institute gig.

Perhaps the most jaw-dropping aspect of this is that the club stood to make about a thousand quid on the deal in the first place - no wonder they were ripping up bollards and pulling down fences to try and get the fake Meat Loaf (Quorn Loaf?) into the building.

It turns out there had been a simple solution all along:
Kevin Andrew, secretary of the Thirsk and Sowerby Institute, said: "A lot of people were very disappointed. We had to tell people on the door it was not going ahead.

"He could have parked on a doctor's car park and we would have helped him with his equipment, but he sped off and didn't give us a chance to offer him alternative access.

"He was bang out of order."

Come on, Mr. Andrew - you can't really complain if you hire a Meat Loaf tribute who leaves like a Bat of Hell, can you?


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