Meat Loaf collapses on stage at Canada concert

The American singer Meat Loaf has been taken to hospital after collapsing in the middle of a performance in Alberta, Canada.

The incident occurred at around 9.30pm on Thursday night, towards the end of the rock legend's set at the Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton.

Videos filmed by concert-goers show Meat Loaf – the stage name of Michael (born Marvin) Lee Aday – performing his 1993 hit I Would Do Anything For Love. Suddenly, he drops his microphone and sinks to the floor, while the backing track continues to play.

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The rocker is famous for his intense, dramatic delivery, and some in the audience initially wondered if it was part of the act.

Britt Brewer described the moment the 68-year-old collapsed as "surreal". "It looked at first like he was just being theatrical and lying down on the stage," she told the Edmonton Journal. Moments later, the music stopped as bandmates and venue staff gathered around the star, with paramedics arriving shortly after.

The singer, who also had hits with Bat out of Hell and Paradise By The Dashboard Light, has been experiencing unspecified health problems lately. Earlier in the week, two other planned shows on his Canadian tour were cancelled due to illness.

A spokesman for Alberta Health Services confirmed that a patient had been transported from the Jubilee Auditorium to a hospital, but did not give any update on his condition.

It is not the first time Meat Loaf has been taken ill while performing. In 2003, he collapsed on stage in the UK, an incident he blamed on a heart condition called Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, CBC reports. He later said he had undergone surgery to correct the condition.

At a concert in Pittsburgh in 2011, Meat Loaf passed out after suffering an asthma attack on stage. Coincidentally, Metro reports that the 2011 collapse also occurred while the singer was performing I Would Do Anything For Love.