In May 1988, LA hair metal band Dokken set out on the biggest tour of their career - but it would prove disastrous.
Monsters Of Rock was a travelling festival playing 30 dates in stadiums across the US. Van Halen headlined. Below them, in descending order, were Scorpions, Dokken, Metallica and Kingdom Come.
At the end of 1987, Dokken had released their most successful album to date, Back For The Attack, which hit No.13 in the US. They’d also had an MTV hit with the song Dream Warriors, which was on the soundtrack to horror film A Nightmare On Elm Street 3 (the video features its star Robert ‘Freddy Krueger‘ Englund).
But on the Monsters Of Rock tour Dokken had a problem. They had to follow Metallica.
Dokken were a melodic hard rock band with some punchy songs and a genuine guitar hero in George Lynch. But in 1988 Metallica were the fast-rising kings of thrash metal with a fanatical following.
At the Monsters Of Rock show at the LA Coliseum, a near-riot ensued during Metallica’s performance.
It was a hard act to follow, and Dokken didn’t stand a chance.
As singer Don Dokken recalled to Classic Rock: “After Metallica went out and played Master Of Puppets, we sounded like the f**king Partridge Family!”
As the tour progressed, Don asked Cliff Burnstein, co-manager of both Dokken and Metallica, if the two bands could swap places on the bill.
Don said: “I told Cliff: ‘I know we’re making twice the money as Metallica, but can you please put ’em on after us, because they’re killing us?”
Burnstein said no, and Dokken’s humiliation was complete following a show at Giants Stadium in New Jersey.
“There was this huge review in the New York Times,” Don recalls. “It said that Van Halen kicked ass, the Scorpions were super-amazing, Metallica are the new upstarts just breaking out in America, Kingdom Come was good… and there was just one line about us. It said: ‘During Dokken’s set a record number of hotdogs were sold.’ It was horrible.”
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