One thing that can never be accounted for is the record-buying public's love of the ridiculous. Meat Loaf's 1978 album Bat Out of Hell is a sort of rock opera comprising melodramatic ballads, sub-Bruce Springsteen barroom rock, mock-Broadway schmaltz and a guest appearance from a chattering sports reporter. It is hard to imagine the music-business executive who thought that was a good idea. And yet it sold 25m copies.

As tonight's performance underlines, Meat Loaf's oeuvre may well be the most ridiculous body of work in rock history. Nothing else has ever scaled the heights of piquant idiocy attained by Paradise by the Dashboard Light, an episodic and wildly overblown song about having sex in a car that makes Bohemian Rhapsody sound like Billy Bragg. Tonight, the finale features Meat Loaf and backing vocalist Patti Russo acting out an argument. There is much eye-popping, gesticulation and shouting: "Fuck you!" "No! Fuck you!"

On stage Meat Loaf resembles a rock star as played by late comic actor John Candy, portly and seemingly beyond embarrassment. When he calls London "the rock'n'roll capital of the fuckin' world", video screens show the audience. They do not look like citizens of the rock'n'roll capital of the fuckin' world - they look like people en route to a cheese and wine party - but they are clearly loving every preposterous minute. Meat Loaf asks women to throw their bras at him. They oblige. He performs a "blue" version of rock standard Mony Mony. They sing along. He hams up I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) mercilessly, pretending to sob, burying his head in Russo's breasts. At certain points, it seems unlikely the song will ever end. "Gowan, Meat!" shouts a cockney voice in the crowd - wildly enthusiastic, slightly bemused, but clearly entertained.

· Meat Loaf plays Marlay Park, Dublin (00 353 1 456 9569), tomorrow, then tours to Cardiff and Liverpool.