By Andrew Bansal
March 20th 2015, The Whisky-A-Go-Go, West Hollywood CA: Los Angeles is a town that gives the hard rock/heavy metal lover plenty of options to choose from when it comes to live entertainment. Every night, there is invariably more than one event taking place, putting people that support a wide variety of heavy music in a dilemma. This dilemma is heightened much further on Friday and Saturday nights, wherein there are not two, not three but usually five or even up to ten shows to pick from. In my quest to attend and review as many shows as I can while I’m temporarily in town, I make such decisions every day, and oftentimes I find myself regretting these decisions. Last night was one such occasion. A lot of local friends warned me about how bad Dokken are live these days, but having never seen them, I wanted to check it out for myself. I love the Dokken classics as much as anyone you will come across, was listening to them on Spotify all week, and even the band I listen to the most on my bus/train rides, Skull Fist, also has strong Dokken influences in their music. So, I was genuinely pumped for this show, and the morning after, as I sit and listen to the same Dokken classics on Spotify and drown my sorrows that resulted from just how abysmally terrible the show was, here’s a recap of my experience from the night.
The ticket price for the show was $30, and I recieved comments and messages from many people expressing their surprise at seeing the band charging that kind of money at this stage of their career and in their current incarnation. I have to agree with these people, but it was my turn to be surprised when I reached the venue at around 8 PM, seeing it already packed, and hearing reports from attendees that there were more than 80 people in line before the doors even opened. I was happy for the band and venue. The Sunset Strip had turned into cougartown and with a late start to the show as it included only three local opening acts, the wait for Dokken didn’t seem too long, specially for attendees that trekked back and forth between the Whisky and their favorite hangout spot in town, “The Bow”. By 11:15, the place was so packed that all the isles and walkways were almost completely blocked, and a highly inebriated crowd cheered Don Dokken and his band mates onto the stage.
They very aptly opened with ‘Kiss Of Death’, because right from the outset, it was quite clear that there was no going to be no attempt whatsoever from Don Dokken to hit the right notes, and his band was very discernibly downtuned a full step. The songs were sounding as if I was listening to them on vinyl at a reduced rotation speed. The set was filled to the brim with the worst possible renditions of Dokken’s greatest hits, and despite being a truly huge fan of all these songs, it was very easy to quickly lose interest in this performance. To my tremendous disappointment, my two favorite Dokken songs ‘Dream Warriors’ and ‘In My Dreams’ sounded the worst of the lot, perhaps delivering a brutally ironic message saying I can only dream of witnessing an enjoyable Dokken performance because it’s certainly not happening in real life.
During the initial phase of the set, drummer Mick Brown sarcastically kept yelling ” … and the crowd goes wild!” after every song. The crowd was very right in not going wild, as there seemed to be no valid reason to do so. Don Dokken also constanly pointed the microphone to the crowd to seek their help in getting through the lyrics, as a blatant shortcut in his performance. But it was not all negative and bleak, as Mark Boals held down the bass and delivered backing vocals solidly, and guitarist Jon Levin, who played on Doro’s 1989 ‘Force Majeure’ album, was the most positive aspect of this show, putting forth some excellent work which was definitely enjoyable whenever it was not accompanied by Don Dokken’s vocals. Besides, early on in the set, as I looked around me, I realized that my all-time favorite pornstar was standing right next to me, and she remained there for most of the show, keeping a low profile and dressed in an infinitely more respectable manner in comparison to most of the female members in this audience. As I tried my hardest to not stare at her and to not draw any of her attention towards me, I found it to be the coolest and most endearing moment of the entire show when I saw her singing along to ‘Dream Warriors’, and it helped hugely in overcoming the disappointment of the band’s greatly underwhelming rendition of the song.
Aside from the quality of the performance, the quantity was also nowhere near justifiable for the ticket price, as Dokken played only 11 songs and walked off stage after a set that barely lasted over an hour, not returning for an encore. Had I not already completely lost interest in what songs the band was playing, I would have been extremely upset at not hearing ‘Unchain The Night’ and ‘Tooth And Nail’, the two biggest glaring omissions from this half-hearted, phoned-in abomination of a set. But to be fair, it must be mentioned that some of my older friends who have seen Dokken in recent years told me after the show that this wasn’t the worst they’ve seen from the band. Many Dokken fans pleaded to me to go easy on Don Dokken because of his age, but in case you’re not aware, there are many, many rock and metal singers of similar or older age group still delivering the goods, singing songs that are much harder to sing than any of Dokken’s material. Bruce Dickinson, Glenn Hughes, Rob Halford, Ian Gillan, Klaus Meine, Udo Dirkschneider, Biff Byford, Doro Pesch, Betsy Bitch, Eric Bloom, Bernie Shaw, Jack Russell … and the list goes on, and on, and on. So, why should there be any room for sympathy? If a singer can’t sing the songs anywhere close to the way they’re supposed to be sung, he or she should kindly pack it up and quit ruining the band’s legacy.
This Dokken performance goes down as an overwhelmingly strong contender for the worst of the year, and I might actually have newfound levels of respect for Vince Neil and Motley Crue as they are no longer the worst live band I’ve ever seen. Now as I switch to Queensryche on Spotify, a band I already know will deliver a great show next week in Anaheim, I humbly suggest you to never see Dokken in concert.
Set List:
01. Kiss Of Death
02. The Hunter
03. Dream Warriors
04. Just Got Lucky
05. Breaking The Chains
06. Into the Fire
07. Alone Again
08. Too High to Fly / The End (The Doors cover)
09. Empire
10. It’s Not Love / All Right Now (Free cover)
11. In My Dreams