Monday
Nov302009
It Happened - Don Dokken and George Lynch Perform Together
Monday, November 30, 2009 at 12:01AM
Awhile back, I posted about the Lynch Mob/Dokken shows. Over the weekend, George Lynch joined Dokken on stage in San Diego for a special performance of "In My Dreams." I gotta say, I was pretty darn excited about both bands playing together - I'd love to see George and Don together on stage, just like back in the 80s. Of course I can't always make every show, so I didn't travel to California for this gig. Thankfully, YouTube takes us there free. I was hoping "In My Dreams" sounded like the album...but Don's voice is pretty rough here. Some comments over on Blabbermouth seem to indicate every musician involved in the show had the flu. If that's the case, I give kudos. I can't imagine having to perform a rock show with the flu and I bet that was brutal for the guys. Anyway, here's the clip. Watch and let me know what you think. We've waited a long time for this.
Reader Comments (15)
It's always great to experience Dokken tunes played live and done right. Aw right, aw right, Don's voice is a bit tattered, but carry on Don. Jon Levin handled the 6 string duties with great hair-metal poise and deserves high marks for his accuracy to the original recordings. I did miss Dokken's best bass player though. Barry Sparks, where are you???
So, all in all, $23 for a ticket, $8 for a 24oz can of Budweiser and a large Thanksgiving serving of Dokken music live and loud, I'm good.
Easily one of the top 5 biggies of Hair Metal.
News for ya, tho (or maybe not, if you remember Dokken live back in the day), Don's voice was always shot and his vocals were always sped up and punched in to be on key on all their albums in post production.
But who cares about the occasional off note or deeper tone his real voice possesses, these guys are a killer pair who wrote so many Hair Metal Classics together (i.e. "It's Not Love").
Lynch is one of the best shredders around and Don is singing their classic cannon with conviction. Let's hope the next time they get together, they stay on stage for a helluva lot longer than one song!
Still it is a major milestone in Metal History these two rejoined even if it was for just one song. Here's to hearing more of these guys together again, and soon! How about a tour as glamrockarchie suggests (Hey, GlamR Arch!)!
p.s. Now if they can get Pilson up there when George is there, too! He belongs in Dokken, not a butchered version of Foreigner. I'm a purist. That's why the Van Halen "reunion" was a bit off for me. "Wild" Mick Brown is already there. Let's hope the pieces of the puzzle fall back in place and these boyz rock together again soon! And what about an album? Man, that would be killer! Damn P, you say George Lynch isn't the happiest guy in the room. Then why did he do all this? Do you think it was because of contractual obligations? Wouldn't it be awesome to hear Dokken do the whole "Under Lock And Key" album in sequence a la Ratt doing "Out of the Cellar" recently? Rock On!
Reb playing with them was good and picked up some of the slack left by Lynch, but the loss of Pilson just killed the vocals. Here is hoping the band does one LAST FULL reunion and it hits on all 8 cylinders!
cheers,
Lou.
PS
MetalBoy-a full run of "Under Lock" would kick ass!
Arguably, they were occasionally lackluster live, but I always felt the music more than made up for the stageshow, and Don's occasional rambling diatribes.
Saw them in 2001, at it was a good show, but I thought their performance at 2007 Rocklahoma was fantastic. No Lynch, but Wild Mick Brown was there, and Don seemed to really get into it - he was even moving around the stage with a little pep! Of course the cigarette, and later the whiskey, joined Don on stage as usual; but still a memorable show.