The first minute and a half of Meat Loaf’s first hit, “Bat Out of Hell,” would start with just the band onstage, said guitarist Mark Doyle, over the phone from his house in Syracuse. He hummed the piano lick, still ingrained after 40 years, that signaled the star was coming.
“He’d come out and start prowling the stage, and the crowd would go crazy,” said Doyle.