ALBUM REVIEW: Dokken – Return To The East Live 2016

I well remember the very day that I purchased ‘Beast From the East’ on vinyl from my local record store in 1988 and spinning it relentlessly till I wore it out. The band had just come off the run of their lives with 1984’s ‘Tooth and Nail’ expanding on the promise of ‘Breaking the Chains’ and 1985’s  classic ‘Under Lock and Key’ eclipsing even that, before the 1987 opus ‘Back For the Attack’ completed their run of platinum albums before the band went their separate ways largely due to due to “creative and personal differences between Don Dokken and George Lynch”.

Well that day when, as The Eagles would say, ‘Hell Freezes Over’ has come and gone. The band got back together, played a few dates and it didn’t come to blows. There’s even a new track here and even more than that – talk of maybe an album featuring the ‘classic’ Dokken line up.

For now though let’s just concentrate on what we do have – a CD/DVD Blu-Ray and box set of the Loud Park Festival date on October 8th 2016 that the band played as part of their six date mini tour of Japan that had been preceded by a solitary 29th September 2016 warm up show in Sioux Falls South Dakota – the only reunion show on US soil.

The only odd thing about the release I guess is the running order, with the CD for some reason running a completely different order to the live footage – and the latter seemingly not in synch with the running order of the actual show.  In truth though it matters not. The fact that this reunion happened at all that is the big news and if I’m honest this was one reunion that I thought was never going to get off the ground. I was at Rock in America in Oklahoma back in 2010 when both Dokken and Lynch Mob played and whilst George played the after party and both bands played sets a short time apart neither seemed ready to even be in the same room. I’m glad this has happened no matter how fleetingly but a live show is not really what the fans are after – what we want is the promise of something new and in these days of file sharing and modern technology the fact is I guess that there’s not even any need to be in the same room or even talk…

So the million dollar question is – how does it sound? Lets take the live portion first – it sounds great,not as good as ‘Beast From the East’ where Dokken was a tenor hitting the high notes, sadly the years haven’t treated his voice as kindly as say Glenn Hughes but he’s adapted and I for one kind of like his lower baritone and along with the lower tuning for the songs the ‘new’ 2018 Dokken vocal fits the songs well. There’s a darker, gritter, dirtier take on the songs we all know so well. The other reason it works comes down to some great backing vocals which sonically sort of fill out the sound and deepen the melodies and there’s also the fact that even though this still sounds a little loose here and there Brown, Pilson and Lynch absolutely nail it.

Of the live tracks ‘It’s Not Love’ is still the best thing Dokken ever recorded to my ears and I actually like how the song has evolved over the years the rest of the track-listing is pretty much as you’d expect with only ‘Walk Away’ the closer from ‘Beast From the East’ and ‘Heaven Sent,’ which gets an acoustic make-over, missing from the 1988 set. 30 years on this isn’t a bad echo at all.

The fans of course will be even more interested in the new song and the two acoustic tracks – the latter being reworkings of ‘Heaven Sent’ and ‘Will The Sun Rise‘ both songs of course ideally suited to such treatment and both sound great here with Lynch’s lead guitar colouring what essentially sound like the acoustic takes that Don was doing with Mark Boals when I last caught him in 2015. I’d like to hear more and must admit I was a little disappointed that we get just the two acoustic takes and EP would have been nice!

The new track for some might just be an even bigger treat, and as a first stab ‘It’s Just Another Day‘ isn’t bad – it sounds like Dokken but has a ‘modern edge’ that isn’t pronounced enough to offend the old school or off-putting enough to dissuade new listeners. If I’m honest I’ve liked recent Dokken albums sans-Lynch and liked recent Lynch albums without Dokken and this sounds more like the former to me.It is a song that makes you want to hear more and that can’t be bad can it.

Welcome back, sort of…