Published on May 17, 2000
The rebirth of Dokken should have been complete by now.
With their last studio effort
Erase The Slate, any doubts about whether Don Dokken and
crew could still carry the torch of hard rock should have been
erased. New addition Reb Beach proved, both on record and live at a
show I saw at Chicago’s House Of Blues, that he was more than an
adequate guitarist to fill George Lynch’s shoes — so much so that
the tag “former Winger member” should be permanently retired from
any future description.
Yes, Dokken should have been primed for that return to glory.
But something is missing on their latest release (and third live
disc)
Live From The Sun. And for once, I think I know what it
is… but let’s not give out all our secrets in only the third
paragraph.
Recorded in November 1999 in Anaheim, California, Dokken and
crew do an admirable job, plowing through a balanced collection of
new and old songs to the delight of a friendly crowd. The two
tracks from
Erase The Slate, “Maddest Hatter” (why this one wasn’t a hit
single, I will never understand) and “Erase The Slate,” just go to
demonstrate how strong an effort this album was, and how Dokken,
Beach, bassist Jeff Pilson and drummer Wild Mick Brown can still
deliver the goods, even after nearly 20 years together.
Yet one newer song doesn’t have the same muster — namely, “Too
High To Fly” off of
Dysfunctional. I’ll admit I considered this song to be a low
point in the Chicago show, and I’ll also concede that this version
keeps the morality play to a minimum. But compared to other songs
on the disc, it’s not the strongest choice that the band could have
made. (Side note: after having the privilege to talk to Don Dokken
after their Chicago gig, I can understand why they included
it.)
If you pick this disc up looking only for the classics, there is
plenty on
Live From The Sun to make you happy. With Beach adding his
own unique six-string signatures to tracks like “Kiss Of Death,”
“Alone Again” and “In My Dreams,” Dokken show that these songs
still pack a punch. The only disappointment: “The Hunter” is
missing a little bit of the magic from other versions I’ve
heard.
For all of its good performances,
Live From The Sun has one tragic flaw: it doesn’t allow the
listener to get into the show the same way they would if they were
in the front row of the same concert. This gets us to what’s
missing — the visual aspect of Dokken as a band. Like many other
live albums before this one (and thousands that will follow), it is
insanely difficult to capture that raw emotion and bottle it into a
plastic and aluminum disc. Try as hard as Dokken did, that energy
just doesn’t come through. (With the promise of this show being
released on DVD and video later this year, I’d like to think that
some of that magic will be rediscovered.)
I don’t want to sound like
Live From The Sun is a bad disc — there’s plenty on this
disc to please Dokken fans, and will tide them over until the next
studio effort (which is supposedly going to be out late this year).
But this disc does serve as a reminder that a live album is rarely
the best substitute for being at the show in person.