Illinois Entertainer

Doro
Pearl Room, Mokena
Saturday, March 29, 2008

Occasionally, when writing about a heavy metal band I’ll pull out The Book Of Metal, written by Metal Hammer editor Chris Ingham and billed as “the most comprehensive encyclopedia of metal music ever created,” as a reference. Most comprehensive ever, yet no damn Doro?

Punk bands The Damned and Dead Kennedys both made the book’s “D” section, as did ’90s rap rockers Dog Eat Dog and Downset. Remember them? Me neither. And I hardly think Drowning Pool and Dope are more noteworthy than Doro Pesch, who was doing her thing as far back as the early ’80s. Sure, there were other women in hard rock and metal then, but those were mostly acts like Heart, The Runaways, and Girlschool – bands who were all, or nearly all, female. Joan Jett, Lita Ford, and Kelly Johnson had sisters in arms. Doro fronted an all-male band, Warlock, in maybe the most male-dominated type of music in the world — fantasy/power metal. Nearly everyone can relate to punky teenage angst and broken hearts. Not everyone is so accepting of witches, dragons, and sorcerers, especially when a woman is singing about them.

Doro opened for Megadeth, for cryin’ out loud! Evil, drug-addled, fast-loud-and-rude 1988 Megadeth, not Holy, vitamin-swallowing, won’t-play-with-Satanic-bands 2008 Megadeth. Dog Eat Dog? Oh I forgot, they toured with Biohazard.

At least Ingham had the decency to include Doro in the “D” dispatches — a list of groups worth mentioning in name alone, and a list that also includes Dream Theater and Dokken, both of whom actually have their own paragraphs and weren’t “dispatched.” Anybody want to buy a used copy of The Book Of Metal?

Doro’s most recent release, All We Are: The Fight, is a half video/half-aural disc released late last year by Locomotive.

– Trevor Fisher

Click here for Doro streaming samples.