Mister X likes music and really enjoys seeing bands play live, when one of my favorites, Ratt, was listed as headlining our end-of-summer festival at the local casino, I grabbed tickets for a great line-up of 80's heavy metal bands with mostly original line-ups I've seen most of these guys starting in the glory days, moving on to the smelly bar, low-attendance days and the recent resurgence and revival days. Luck would have it and Stephen Pearcy decided to fire most of Ratt right before the tour started and they were dropped from the line-up. Scrap Metal, a group with the Nelson Twins as the rhythm section and at least four different big 80's singers as guests during the set, was put in as the replacement group with Don Dokken as one of the guest singers. Last night kicked off with a personal favorite, KIX starting the evening blazing through a pretty extensive catalog of great songs, a few more bands played mostly full sets and things were good. Scrap Metal, the supposed headliner came on with guests Mark Slaughter, Lita Ford, the new Boston Singer (with Barry Goudreau playing and looking great!) and a few of the Nelson Twins Hits from the 80's thrown in, but no Dokken....Then it was announced..Dokken would be the new headliner, with George Lynch on guitar, and the set change began. Oh yea, count me in, I'm a huge Dokken fan going back to early MTV and thinking they were a huge poser band. I grew to like them and really loved hearing George Lynch's Distinctive Guitar. Dokken and Lynch seemingly hate each other going back to the early 90's, shortly after they became headliners. and have only done a handful of shows together since then. They did tour Japan a few years ago but video shows they barely look at each other and stand on opposite sides of the stage. Dokken's voice can't hit the highs anymore but it didn't matter, hearing Lynch crunch out some of the best 80's melodic rock was all I needed. All of them were in good moods and I even got to hear George talk and smile, two things I've never seen him do in all the concerts I've seen him at. Here's a couple of rare photos of this amazing event, I hope you enjoy.
