My guess is that most of you who follow this blog didn’t get past the demons and leather on the promotional poster above.  But that’s ok, I’m not here to convince anyone that they should buy the new Doro album.  I’m not even here to drive attendance to her remaining North American tour dates.  If you didn’t listen to Warlock in the 80’s, then you will never appreciate Doro in 2013.  I’m not saying that to be elitist, in fact it’s the complete opposite.  If I hadn’t fallen for the Metal Queen as a preteen, I wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes at last night’s show at Moe’s BBQ in Englewood.  Sure, at 48 years old, it’s almost unbelievable how much her voice resembles those recordings from the 80’s, and yes, her headbanging and horn throwing skills are probably the reason for what appears to be zero percent body fat under all that black leather, and her band is very capable of drum and guitar solos that are oh so rare this side of 1990 — but at the end of the day, Doro Pesch is performing a form a heavy metal/hard rock music that died decades ago.  And despite the current resurgence in extreme music, I just don’t see this type of ‘fist-in-the-air’ metal filling arena halls any time in the near future.

So if you didn’t grow up listening to Warlock, then nothing about last night would have convinced you that Doro and her band were worth your time.  However, if you are like me and believe Triumph & Agony stood tall among Appetite For Destruction, Among The Living, Pleasures of the Flesh and The Legacy as one of the great albums of 1987, then you were probably one of the 100+ people sweating their balls off in the back of Moe’s last night.  You are one of the people whom Doro has dedicated the last 30 years of her life to.  And although by the looks of it, many of you (with your horns in the air) listen to this type of music much more than I do, I was proud to be a part of the family for those couple hours while Doro did was she does so well — make metal.  The same way she has done (non-stop) since 1980.

I have to admit I haven’t listened to much of Doro’s work past Force Majeure, so after a few technical problems and a false start, it was no less than mind-blowing when she took the stage with “I Rule The Ruins”, one of my favorites from Triumph & Agony.  It was hot as hell in the tiny packed space (the heat was blasting), one of the speakers was hissing, and the metalheads trying to start a pit were shut down by some parents with their young kids — but none of that mattered, Doro Pesch was a few feet in front of me, performing Warlock songs from my youth.  It was like going back in time.  The explosive opening song was followed by “Burning The Witches” and “Fight For Rock”, indicating early that this would be nothing less than a run through Warlock’s discography.  Over the next two hours the songs from her former band outnumbered her solo material 2:1.  “Earthshaker Rock”, “East Meets West”, the fan-dedicated ballad “Für immer”, “Metal Tango” (by request), and of course, “All We Are”.

It was during that seminal anthem that we were no longer a hundred people crammed into the back of a BBQ joint — we were the metal masses at Monsters of Rock!  You could see it in her eyes as well.  I doubt Doro ever plays small venues, when she looks out, all she sees is a massive crowd of fans that love what she does.  That is why she has never married, never had a family, and more importantly, never changed her sound.  Although the new songs don’t hit home like the old ones, that’s more because we don’t have a history with them, not because they are all that much different than what she was doing in her 20’s.  Doro is a living, breathing, shouting, screaming icon of a time that has long since past.  Just don’t tell her that, because as she made clear last night in her heavily accented, broken English,  “there will never be a farewell tour…I will do this until I die…as long as you keep coming…for another 30 years!!!“.

Setlist:
I Rule the Ruins
Burning the Witches
Fight for Rock
Running from the Devil
Raise Your Fist
True as Steel
Metal Racer
Earthshaker Rock (drum solo)
East Meets West
Für Immer
Hero
Breaking the Law
All We Are
Metal Tango
Out of Control
Revenge
Unholy Love (bass solo)
Burn It Up