Meat Loaf has collapsed while performing onstage in Edmonton Thursday night.
Edmonton police confirmed that they responded to a medical call Northern Jubilee Auditorium. Because the call was medical in nature Alberta Health Service has since taken over.
This comes after the singer cancelled shows in Moose Jaw and Calgary earlier in the week citing illness. He had played a half-dozen dates in eastern and central Canada leading beginning in May and leading up to this week.
Born Michael Lee Aday, the 68-year-old has enjoyed a four-decade-long singing and acting career. Meat Loaf is best known for his 1977 smash album Bat Out of Hell and its companion piece nearly two decades later, 1993’s Bat Out of Hell: Back into Hell.
‘He just fell’
Jamie Carriere has been a long time fan of Meat Loaf and was at the concert Thursday night.
Carriere said that Meat Loaf was performing I Would Do Anything For Love from the 1993 album as an encore when he suddenly collapsed.
“He fell … he just fell,” said Carriere. “You could hear the microphone just hit the ground.”
“I thought it was a joke, I didn’t know what was going on because he was joking around throughout his set.”
“He just didn’t get up and security was up there and they told us we had to go.”
Carriere said that the entire building was forced to leave while fire trucks and ambulances arrived at the building.
“People were trying to cheer him on yelling ‘Come on Meat Loaf’ but the atmosphere became ‘no you shouldn’t be doing that right now, this is something serious.'”
Below is a video that Carriere took at the show.
More to come