Finally the day of the long awaited rock party of the year had arrived, the queen of metal; DORO celebrates her 25th Anniversary, with a great rock party with lots of guests at the ISS Dome in her hometown Dusseldorf. After checking in to the hotel, we arrived early at the Dome as we didn't want to miss anything, so we had to wait some time for the arena doors to open. There was already a nice crowd when we got there, so when the doors finally opened, everybody wanted to get in there at the same time. After getting into the arena, we got to see a perfect place for a happening like this, with a huge stage and enough place for about 12000 people I guess, although I don't think it was sold out. We wanted to get there in time as we thought Leave's Eyes was opening the party, but when we got in, I immediately saw Atomic Steif's drumkit on stage, so the opener had to be HOLY MOSES instead of Leave's Eyes, which was a nice surprise!
Holy Moses played a (too) short set of about 25 minutes, but they did it great. Among the songs played were 'Master of Disaster' and 'Lost in the Maze', and ofcourse I missed a lot of classics being played, but they had only 25 minutes to play so it was impossible to play them all unfortunately. Sabina truly is a great frontwoman, and although the sound wasn't perfect, they gave a great performance. After a short break, next band up would be…
LEAVE'S EYES entered the stage for the next 35 minutes or so, and performed a great set with among others, 'New Found Land', 'Elegy' and 'Legend Land'. Always great to see them perform live, they never give less than a 110% for their fans, and Alex and Liv are an energetic frontcouple. Alex banging his head off and running round the stage, while Liv sings and moves beautiful in her kinda opera way. They were supposed to present their new album live, but due to the short amount of time they had to play, they left that out, because no one would know these songs as the album isn't out yet. After the show they always make time for their fans, so they came out to the merch stand for some signing and stuff, nice to see they are normal people and not on a high horse. Because of all the talking and taking pictures with the fans they almost forgot they had to do an interview as well, very sympathetic band.
ARCH ENEMY was next on the bill, but due to the fact that we had to eat sometime, and we already had seen them the day before at De Pul in Uden, we missed their performance this night. But now we also had time to see the whole metal market which was also part of the whole happening.
Finally, around eight, the lights went out and an introduction was started, on the big screens on both sides of the stage, on the career of the star of tonight. After this, long time friend and boxing champion Regina Halmich, announced DORO, and 'Earthshaker Rock' started the party, immediately followed by 'I Rule The Ruins' and the ode to her fans 'You're my Family'. Also some songs of the new album 'Fear No Evil', which will be released in January, were played like 'Night of the Warlock' and 'Herzblut'. The whole stage background was a gigantic moving Warlock, with furious eyes, and big hands, this was an amazing stage setup with special effects and fire, it really showed that a lot of work was done here to get it right. One of the first guests, in a long line of guest appearances, who was on Doro's side, was Bobby 'Blitz' Ellsworth (Overkill) with whom she did a duet on 'Always Live To Win'. And a few songs after that 'Burn It Up' featured Jean Beauvoir (Plasmatics) on guitar. The whole night was a coming and going of many guests and friends who wanted to contribute to the 25th Anniversary of the queen of metal. On 'Celebrate' a lot of female vocalists joined Doro, like Liv Kristine (Leave's Eyes), Sabina Classen (Holy Moses), Liv (Sister Sin), Floor Jansen (After Forever), Jackie and Enid from Girlschool, and I'll probably forgot some more. One of the highlights of the evening was a duet with Tarja Turunen on 'Walking With The Angels' and 'The Seer', some of the best female voices in metal together. 'East Meets West' featured Chris Boltendahl (Gravedigger) on vocals and Axel Rudi Pell on guitar, who fell flat on his face when he left the stage. Another highlight was the appearance of Klaus Meine and Rudolf Schenker of The Scorpions, with whom Doro performed the Scorpions songs 'Big City Nights' and 'Rock You Like a Hurricane'. Then the time was there the Warlock reunion was announced with the '86 line up, except for Frank Rittel who was replaced by DORO bassplayer for 19 years, Nick Douglass. They performed a set of Warlock classics, which featured among others 'Fight For Rock' and 'Burning The Witches', and on 'Hellbound' Warrel Dane (Nevermore) joined in. After the Warlock set, the DORO band returned to give an encore with 'Warrior Soul', 'Unholy Love' and 'Fight', which showed that Doro has an awesome band around her with Johnny Dee on drums, Joe Taylor on guitar, Nick Douglass on bass and Oliver Palotai on Keys and guitar. The night ended with another encore of 'All We Are', on which all guests joined in on stage, a great ending of a great night. About more than 8000 fans from all around the world witnessed a once in a lifetime happening, which certainly didn't leave Doro untouched by the love she received from her fans and friends. And to all of them she proved to be still the only real Metal Queen (sorry Lee Aaron) after being on stage for almost 3,5 hours! SICK OF IT ALL & GUEST (Persistance Tour) (10 December 2008)
013, Tilburg, The Netherlands
Review by Dennis van Dommelen

This is the fourth time that the Persistence tour comes to Europe and the third time it strikes down at the 013 in Tilburg. Each year the tour is the wet dream for every hard- and metalcore fan. With the best bands around chosen by the public via the internet the bill is always very diverse. Each year there's a little surprise concerning the bill. Last year Napalm death was that surprise and this year Heaven Shall Burn and Discipline are here for a change between the more hardcore/punk sounding bands.
The previous concerts I watched at the 013 the venue chose to began very early in the afternoon. This time it was no different. When I entered the venue at 17:00h THE SETUP were about to play their last song to the very few people who could make it on time. The few people who saw this Belgian band had seen a good opening act. Their sound reminds me a bit of Path of Resistance the band with Earth Crisis members with at times some softer parts.
After The Setup it was time for the Christian metalcore brothers WAR OF AGES to begin with their 25 minute set. The band was very pleased to play in Europe for the first time in their career. Their metalcore with a lot of Maiden twin guitar parts in it sounded somewhat weak and not original. And the crowd seemed not very interested. Last song: "Stand your Ground" got some crowd response but to me War of Ages is no more than Maiden influenced metalcore with some breakdowns.
With H20 the first "big" band entered the stage. Way too low on the bill but H20 gave all they had in their 30 minutes playing time. During the first song I couldn't hear any vocals but this problem was gone when the second song began. With the third song "Me and all my Friends" the sound was o.k. and the first real pit of the day was there. Later on Lou Koller (Sick Of It All) came on the stage to do a little guest vocals and after that it was time for H20's version of "War Pigs" from Black Sabbath. With "What happened" the show ended and H20 showed hardcore from New York is still there!
Then DISCIPLINE