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poster
Setlist
Tour Dates
04/18/15 Tucson, AZ Pima County Fair
05/01/15 Columbia, MD "M3 Rock Festival" 05/02/15 Agoura Hills, CA The Canyon with 06/05/15 Solvesborg, Sweden "Sweden Rock Festival" 07/16/15 Oshkosh, WI "Rock USA" 07/18/15 Erie, PA Hub At Perry Square Read More
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Probably the best way to express it all is this:
If you recognize that text emoticon, you probably also correctly assume that 80’s hard rock was in the building, and it arrived in the form of Don Dokken with Mark Boals.
The pair had flown in from sunny Los Angeles to do an unplugged/storytellers style concert at the remote St. Croix Casino in Turtle Lake, WI, or as Dokken mentioned, a “three hour plane ride and two hour car ride”, assuming they came into Minneapolis/St Paul Airport.
The duo was the last of the casino’s Platinum Unplugged Series, which also brought in Lita Ford, Great White’s Jack Russell, Mr. Big’s Eric Martin, and Kip Winger previously, all at a more than reasonable price.
The band Dokken has had their share of turmoil over their 30+ years, most notably between the singer and guitarist George Lynch, who has left, returned, and left again. Most recently, bassist Sean McNabb left, to be replaced by veteran Mark Boals, who has worked with Ted Nugent, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Dio Disciples, among others, and who sang background vocals on the band’s last studio effort, 2012’s Broken Bones (Frontier Records).
The duo began their 65min. set with the Dokken classic, ‘Into the Fire’ from 1984’s Tooth and Nail, which we found out was written as Dokken was throwing Polaroids of old girlfriends into the fireplace, at the request of his then-current girlfriend.
Without first realizing and whilst sipping a Jack and Coke, the 61 yr old Dokken then skipped ahead on the setlist to ‘Dream Warriors’, the 1987 song used in Nightmare on Elm Street 3, before reverting back to ‘Just Got Lucky’.
A hard rock fan might not have realized, but his main influence was The Beatles and several of their covers were worked into the set, with Dokken also relating the story of meeting and informally jamming with George Harrison near the end of his life.
The band’s first hit, 1981’s ‘Breaking the Chains’ from the album of the same name, was written while in Germany as Dokken provided background vocals for The Scorpions’ album, Blackout. Inspired by a comment from Scorps guitarist Rudolf Schenker on what to write about, the hit song was born.
Sarcastic, over confident, and admittedly male chauvinistic, the acoustic ‘It’s Not Love’ sounded grittier stripped down, with its hedonist verses and “why, baby, why” chorus. The band’s biggest hit, the melodic ‘In My Dreams’ closed out the night, their highest charting song from 1985’s Under Lock and Key.
The performance itself was loose, relaxed (sometimes overly so) and unabashedly honest, with Boals doing much of the vocal heavy lifting in carrying the higher notes. They would stop mid-song a time or two as lyrics were forgotten or something was played in a wrong key and vocal range is not what it was, but all of that made it endearing and compelling. The stories and rants of a rock veteran in the game since 1978 were very interesting and put a different spin of some of those classic 80’s hard rock songs people have come to know and love.
My only regret was not seeing any other of the casino’s Platinum Unplugged series, as if they were half as interesting, they would have been more than worth it. Dokken continues touring with sporadic dates both acoustically and with full band, and be sure to raise the “rock hands” as some 35+ years later, there’s still some “rokken” to Dokken.
\m/ >_< \m/
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Mark Boals
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The pair had flown in from sunny Los Angeles to do an unplugged/storytellers style concert at the remote St. Croix Casino in Turtle Lake, WI, or as Dokken mentioned, a “three hour plane ride and two hour car ride”, assuming they came into Minneapolis/St Paul Airport.
The duo was the last of the casino’s Platinum Unplugged Series, which also brought in Lita Ford, Great White’s Jack Russell, Mr. Big’s Eric Martin, and Kip Winger previously, all at a more than reasonable price.
The band Dokken has had their share of turmoil over their 30+ years, most notably between the singer and guitarist George Lynch, who has left, returned, and left again. Most recently, bassist Sean McNabb left, to be replaced by veteran Mark Boals, who has worked with Ted Nugent, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Dio Disciples, among others, and who sang background vocals on the band’s last studio effort, 2012’s Broken Bones (Frontier Records).
The duo began their 65min. set with the Dokken classic, ‘Into the Fire’ from 1984’s Tooth and Nail, which we found out was written as Dokken was throwing Polaroids of old girlfriends into the fireplace, at the request of his then-current girlfriend.
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Don Dokken
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A hard rock fan might not have realized, but his main influence was The Beatles and several of their covers were worked into the set, with Dokken also relating the story of meeting and informally jamming with George Harrison near the end of his life.
The band’s first hit, 1981’s ‘Breaking the Chains’ from the album of the same name, was written while in Germany as Dokken provided background vocals for The Scorpions’ album, Blackout. Inspired by a comment from Scorps guitarist Rudolf Schenker on what to write about, the hit song was born.
Sarcastic, over confident, and admittedly male chauvinistic, the acoustic ‘It’s Not Love’ sounded grittier stripped down, with its hedonist verses and “why, baby, why” chorus. The band’s biggest hit, the melodic ‘In My Dreams’ closed out the night, their highest charting song from 1985’s Under Lock and Key.
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Setlist
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My only regret was not seeing any other of the casino’s Platinum Unplugged series, as if they were half as interesting, they would have been more than worth it. Dokken continues touring with sporadic dates both acoustically and with full band, and be sure to raise the “rock hands” as some 35+ years later, there’s still some “rokken” to Dokken.
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Don Dokken w/ Mark Boals at St.Croix Casino, Turtle Lake, WI (19 March 2015) |
