211 days till W:O:A 2023.
I am sure everybody knows Doro. Even I knew her before starting my metal blog project and that says something. For 40 years Doro has provided the world with the radio-friendly traditional heavy metal with admirable consistency. I got to be honest, after listening to so much black metal and death metal the last couple of months, switching to Doro the other day took some getting used to again. However, seek and ye shall find - I found something to like with each band I wrote about so far and of course I made a find with Doro as well.
Doro had her breakthrough in 1982 with Dusseldorf based band Warlock. Warlock quickly became popular in Germany and also managed a breakthrough in the US before disbanding in 1988. Their fourth studio album Triumph and Agony (1987) was the band's most succesful album. Doro was forced to give up the band name for legal reasons and she continued to perform under her own name. It took her until 2011 to regain the name rights again. In 2017 she performed Triumph and Agony as a whole again at the Sweden Rock Festival. The live album was released in September 2021 and ultimately this was the album that I was able to enjoy as a whole. The recording is really good, the atmosphere is great and you can feel Doro's love for her music every second. But more on that in a minute. I watched the documentary Doro - The Queen of Metal yesterday and I took a liking to her. She is just a very down-to-earth, heartfealt woman with so much power. I do admire her.
Throughout her career Doro has stayed true to traditional heavy metal. Suzie Quatro and Slade being her earliest influences, she knew very soon that her heart belonged to heavy metal. In her words powerful music with melody. She performed at the Monsters of Rock Festival in Donington as one of the first women and to this day Doro is a role model and inspiration for fellow female metal fans and musicians. She is known for her hard work, her discipline and professionalism.
Throughout the years she has formed friendships with many bands and musicians and she is well known for her duets. I am big fan of Descent performed with Type O'Negative's Pete Steele and even the sappy power ballad It Still Hurts performed with Lemmy.
Musically, Doro started to perform traditional Heavy Metal with Warlock. She toured with big and successful bands like W.A.S.P., Dio, Judas Priest, Megadeath or Yngwie Malmsteen. She moved a bit closer to glam metal or melodic hardrock, even pop metal or mainstream rock at times in her career, but she never lost her loyal fanbase. Even in the 90s when many metal bands had to surrender, Doro remained active and she managed her comeback in the US market in 2000 with her seventh studio album Calling the Wild (2000).
Since then she has continued to release her work very regularly, not taking any breaks. She toured with Saxon and Motörhead and has played at W:0:A eight times already. 2023 will be her 9th performance at Wacken. In 2004 she performed in Wacken with a full symphonic orchestra for the first time and in 2009 she performed the official Wacken hymn We are the Metalheads.
Back to Triump And Agony Live (2021). You can see the whole concert on here in very good quality and it is really fun to watch. My favourite songs on this album are the opener Touch of Evil and the second song I Rule the Ruins. Both songs are powerful heavy metal anthems with fast and strong riffs and solos and plenty of potential to sing along. Doro's raspy voice really shines and her energy on stage is admirable. There are some really good screams here.
And then of course there is Doro's signature song. The most cheezy power ballad in metal that has ever been written. Für Immer. I really want to hate it. The lyrics are in German which is my native language and Doro's and yet they still don't really sound coherent. Do they? But when I listened to the live performance I could not help but feel it. By the time the singalong part starts (24:35) the goosebumbs were there. It is super cheezy, but it is well written song and it totally works. I can't wait to singalong with her in August. See you at Wacken, Doro!
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