---

Death's Review (7/19/02, Asbury Park, NJ):

Dokken Photos by Solomon

I have been really crazed lately, and so I didn't really have any plans to travel to New Jersey to see these bands. But by-mid week, after hearing from Solomon, Dawnrazor and others that they would be making the trek to witness the almighty Priest that Friday night, my metal geekdom kicked in and suddenly I wanted to go too. I'd drink beer and forget my troubles while snickering at a parade of 80's metal bands opening up for the potent but still Halford-less Judas Priest.

That Friday came and with it a massive rainstorm hit New York City. It was after 7 by the time Hel, Musashi, Solomon and I really got out of the city and headed south to Asbury Park. By the time we got to the show, many bands had apparently passed. The gig was in the same complex that has held Koshick's Metal Meltdown series a few times, with the exception that the theater to the one side (where Opeth, Amorphis, Primal Fear and Flotsam and Jetsam played one year and where Overkill taped their DVD a few months back) was closed off. In the huge middle room (where the "Relapse" stage would be at a Koshick show) was the last of a day's worth of local acts - I think their name was Rubber Jimmy or something. Despite the rather odd name, they played with integrity and didn't sound bad.

Judas Priest

But of course, our morbid curiosity drew me into the main arena room where Warrant was playing. I had been reading the metal-sludge.com website and its various reports on the tour, and had just recently seen modern-day pictures of Warrant frontman Jani Lane. Yes the man has changed. Ironic, of course, but yet the Warrant t-shirts on sale in the back still screamed "show your tits!" I seriously was having trouble understanding this whole thing. Lane's voice sounded fine, and the band powered through song after song that I somehow knew every word too even though I never owned the albums and had heard any of them since about 1991. But it wasn't until Musashi pointed out the girl in the tight dress grinding to the music on the side of the stage that the whole glam metal hair band thing almost made sense again. Well . . . it didn't exactly make sense, but at least I remembered why people were willing to make such asses out of themselves and was reminded that yes indeed chicks did once think these guys were actually cool. As for the songs, every one I heard ("I Saw Red," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "Cherry Pie" - with its "We will, we will rock you" Queen break down) I thought of the video.

Dokken was next. They had modern, trippy looking designs set up on stage. Solomon and Musashi clued me in that we were not seeing George Lynch or even his replacement, Reb Beach but instead it was some guy from the 80's band Europe. He did end up shredding though. Things started when we saw Don Dokken come out to the side of the stage yelling at someone before running onstage and launching in to a decent set of classic Dokken material. They only had Don Dokken and drummer Mick Brown as original members (what happened to Jeff Pilson?) but they were--as always--mildly metal. I kinda dug "Breaking the Chains," "Into the Fire" and "Tooth and Nail". The crowd loved "It's Not Love" and "In My Dream". Dokken had a lot of hits once.

Then Dokken ended and the unthinkable happened: they cut off the beer. What? I think this venue is just horrible. The alcohol situation at any of these shows is just horrendous. There must be strange permit issues or something there. Not cool.

Dokken

Priest came on and played a familiar set to the small but enthusiastic crowd. Definitely there appeared to be way more fans than there were for Dokken and Warrant. I was psyched to hear "The Sentinel", "Devil's Child" and "Victim of Changes". Ripper sounded good. I had few complaints. But it was very late and I was very sober. And I had seen this show already just a few months ago.

Bottom line: Judas Priest blew Dokken and Warrant off the stage.

As it should be, right?

 

---

Warrant

Reviewed by Solomon (7/19/02, Asbury Park, NJ):

Judas Priest

Ah, the good old Convention Hall, rodents and all. Evidently, this once mighty fortress has an impending date with a wrecking crew (not Overkill this time, haha), so next year's Metal Meltdown organizers will have to scrounge up another classy venue in which to house their annual event. I'll shed a tear or two when it's gone... maybe... until then, we have the Metal Edge Magazine-sponsored Rockfest to grace the place for now.

At first, the crazy idea of gathering together some of the 80's most popular hard rock acts to tour around America in the early twenty-first century has 'Spinal Tap' written all over it, and then some. Considering there were people at this show wearing Burzum shirts, maybe it's not so whacky afterall. Poison's summer tour package has done quite well, actually, and there's obviously more than a few people still prepared to shell out a few clams for something like this. We'll have to wait until the books are balanced to see whether there's a future for this type of tour or not but, in any case, I was curious to see how this one would turn out. Would I be impressed by a few hair-metal leftovers soldiering on into the new millenium, grabbing ass and forgetting names, or would this be a sad parade of has-been's, a succession of dinosaurs who need to accept their extinction and "fade to black?"

Judas Priest

I'll admit this publicly: I dig this stuff. Okay, if I had a choice between purchasing the new Dark Tranquillity and the latest Dokken release, DT is gonna win, but I can't deny my pop metal roots. Motley Crue, Dokken, Ratt, Whitesnake, Poison, that was my shit, and I still support those bands in spirit even if I haven't bought anything by these artists since the other Bush was President.

Gladly, I can say Friday night was a success... for the most part. As usual, the Metal Judgment crew was fashionably late, i.e. fucking way off schedule. After finally landing in beautiful downtown Asbury Park via rental car, we entered the venue to discover half the acts had already played. Granted, this was an early show, and getting everybody together to make the gig on time was tough, but we made it in time to view the last three performances.

Dokken

Warrant was so-so, working through a bad sound situation with enough gas to get through a set of candy-metal classics like "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "I Saw Red" and "Cherry Pie." Not exactly the most inspiring performance I've seen, but they added some juice to the set with a decent cover of Sab's "War Pigs" (gee, THAT hasn't been done before), getting vocal help from some unrecognizable drunk dude, doing his best Phil Anselmo impersonation (cheers, bro!).

Dokken was better, very cool in fact. Despite more sound-issue crap, Don and Co., including temporary axe replacement for John Norum, Alex De Rosso, launched their set with one of my personal faves, "Kiss of Death." Mr. Lynch and Mr. Pilson are missed, but the band soldiers on admirably, avoiding newer material (gasp!) and hitting the crowd hard with tasty morsels from days gone by, ass-kickers like "Breaking The Chains," "It's Not Love," "Tooth and Nail," "The Hunter" and the obligatory "In My Dreams." Don was visibly pissed at the technical situtation, but he was polite towards the crowd and the whole band worked it like a real group of pros. Hope to see them again soon.

Judas Priest

This is pretty fucked up, but this was the first time I'd seen Judas Priest in my life (yes, I am on crack). Some may say this isn't the REAL Priest but, gimme a break, you can't pin the entire identity of a band on ONE dude. Yes, Halford IS the Metal God, but he's on his own now, deal with it and move on. Priest have, and they can still give those young whipper-snappers a run for their money. "Ripper" Owens is like the band's ambassador to the present, donning a short 'do and baseball cap, almost as if to say, "Yes, you Linkin' Park fans are welcome, too." Hide your eardrums, 'cause that boy does serious justice to the old stuff, hitting all those stratospheric notes with gusto. Sad to say there was no "The Green Manalishi," but Priest's set was like a mandatory Metal 101 (stained) class. There were a few newer tunes like "One On One" and "Blood Stained" dispersed through a sea of classics, including "Metal Gods," "Breaking The Law," "The Sentinel" and "Victim of Changes" before the night ended with a righteous encore of "Painkiller" (oh-yeah!) and "Living After Midnight."

It felt sad to see a legendary giant play in such a crummy place before a few hundred people, but in these metal-depressed times, you just get it where you can and be thankful you still have a band like Judas Priest around at all. Friday night's musical offering was not bad, but Priest made it much better, and I walked away feeling like this had been a trip worth taking.

---

[- Metal Judgment Home -]    [- Email Metal Judgment -]
©1999 Metal Judgment. All rights reserved.