Classic rock fans got the full meal deal as Meat Loaf, right, performed last night along with Aspen Miller at Rexall Place. (WALTER TYCHNOWICZ/SUN)

EDMONTON - Spiting his own namesake, Meat Loaf served up a familiar treat for the 9,000 people on hand at Rexall Place last night: ham and cheese.

How do you score a concert like this one? While by no stretch of the imagination was it the most musically edifying of shows - far from it - the sheer spectacle of it all, the ludicrousness, still made it memorable.

It's the intent that's the question.

Meat Loaf, the reigning king of rock opera, has a reputation as something of a drama queen - difficult, particular, too precious. But is he serious?

In performance, it's hard to escape the nudge-wink of it all. Which is funny because while Meat Loaf swears off theatrics, his act is pure rock 'n' roll vaudeville.

With Celine Dion leaving her gig at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Meat Loaf could easily slide into her slot.

At times, it felt like a Vegas show, at others like a telethon and others still like a Saturday Night Live-like spoof of Vegas shows and telethons.

No, that's not John Belushi or Chris Farley down there; that really is Meat Loaf. Honest.

At 61, Meat Loaf, a.k.a Michael Lee Aday, is long since past being barely 17. And on Paradise by the Dashboard Light, part of the opening set's selection of classics, he left the barely dressed part to his nubile co-vocalist, who was clad in a hot red sports bra and hot red hot pants.

Their interplay made for some laughs, and some minor discomfort. Meat Loaf is a big guy and watching him lumber across the stage in pursuit of that pretty young thing - certainly young enough to be a daughter if not a granddaughter - had an almost Benny Hill quality to it. It's when he caught up that things got weird - watching them grope and struggle was a bit like seeing a sexual assault captured on a parking lot security camera, or home movies of your no-good drunk uncle unwittingly hitting on his own niece at a family reunion.

The presence of Meat Loaf's in-laws in the audience didn't seem to deter such behaviour, however.

"Edmonton is sort of like my home now," he said, referring to his marriage, or impending marriage to Edmonton's own Deborah Gillespie.

Home or not, Meat Loaf wouldn't let the crowd off the hook for not singing to its potential on the chorus of Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth.

"Hang on. No, it's not April Fool's Day. Because if it was, I could probably understand why the singing I heard was so bad. I'm sorry; I thought this was Edmonton, because I heard that people here can sing. This sounds like Calgary ."

Ooh!

The gusto that Meat Loaf throws into his performance sells his show even when his spotty vocals didn't.

They weren't bad, he availed himself well, but they hardly gleam like the metal on the edge of a knife anymore - at least not last night.

The same gal who did the response vocals on Paradise was much clearer and better overall, almost glaringly so.

The band was, likewise, sort of over the top, with Meat Loaf cajoling super cheesy rock solos out of his guitar players by either kissing them on the cheek or socking them in the arm.

You had to laugh, and you still had to ask: is he serious?

His opening act, the lovely Marion Raven, who played a nice and far more grounded acoustic set, shed some insight into the method behind Meat's madness.

"Meat Loaf told me backstage that he made music to get sex," she laughed. "I told him that I was conceived to Meat Loaf in the back of my parents' car."

Formerly of teen pop duo M2M, Norway's Raven seems poised to make a dent with her own solo career. She's got a great voice.

Numbers from her debut album, Here I Am, filled the arena with melody before Meat Loaf got a chance to fill it with something else.

Don't get me wrong; it wasn't a bad show, at least the first half of classics I hung in there for. But the concert had surreal all sewn up.