HISTORY, surely, would have liked the introductions to go like this: "Andrew, meet Meat. Meat, meet Andrew."

Instead, when the chief met the chief entertainer, it was more along the lines of "Hello, how are you?" An opportunity missed.

Andrew Demetriou's joint press conference with Meat Loaf, the American rock star who will perform at Saturday's Grand Final, saw one of the more unusual double acts to grace the MCG.

Mr Loaf - he's addressed thus, or simply as 'Meat' - was wearing a startling black jacket embroidered with glistening silver and red daggers running down the sleeves (or were they stylised Las Vegas showgirls? Who knows?), the sort of Ed Hardy-esque look favoured by Mafiosi and colourful racing identities.

The AFL CEO was more conservatively dressed - after all, he was on the way to the Essendon Women's Network lunch - but expressed his admiration for his special guest's style.

"I want your jacket," Demetriou said.

Loaf, for his part, was also taken with his companion: "CEO, huh. Wow. I'm impressed … what does CEO stand for?"

The acronym explained, Demetriou told Meat that the epic 1977 album Bat Out of Hell was on high rotation in his Toyota Corolla's tape deck back in 1981, around the time when the young footballer was making his way with North Melbourne.

And he noted that when he found out Meat Loaf was to appear at the Grand Final he told his 'people' that despite his busy schedule this week, nobody else was allowed to do this media conference.

They were probably the same 'people' who supplied the stats for Mr Loaf's amazing career - 43 million copies of Bat Out of Hell sold, nine years in the charts still selling 200,000 copies a year.

Err, hang on, Meat interrupted: "That is probably a spin doctor's number …"

"More!?" exclaimed Demetriou.

"No, less," Loaf noted with a shrug.

And then it was time for the first question from the media. "Are you enjoying your time in Melbourne?" Oh, good grief.

To his credit, Meat rose above the banality, but his response, a little riff about how dry Melbourne was and how one of his band members had said it was drier even than Las Vegas, seemed somewhat peculiar after the city had been deluged with almost 50mm of rain in the previous 24 hours.

Still, he's a rock musician not a meteorologist, although weather - and specifically the threat of rain and hail on Saturday - became a subject of discussion.

For the record, he's not worried about rain, but lightning is another matter altogether.

Another question related to his health, given that Loaf had collapsed recently during a concert in Pittsburgh. It was asthma, Meat said, and he had gone on to complete the concert: "I am not worried about my health. I'm more worried about your health now."

As for his Grand Final performance, Loaf declared it would be "the hardest thing I have even done in my life". The issue is trying to shoehorn a concert that normally lasts almost two and a half hours into 12 and a half minutes. For the record, Bat Out of Hell, the song, runs for nine minutes and 56 seconds on its own.

Last year's Grand Final replay entertainment featured Lionel Richie, and Meat was asked if he was a hard act to follow. "I like Lionel," he said. "He doesn't have the energy I do, though." Cop that, Lionel.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs