Quote Originally Posted by 3-LockBox
I saw the monsters of rock tour ('89 ?) which was suppossed to showcase a wide variety of the hottest metal acts. This included Scorpions, Van Halen, Metallica, and Kingdom Come.
I was going to post about this show, but I didn't.. now that you brought it up.. the weirdest thing about this one was that Metallica played before Dokken. My how their paths diverged after this event. Even the Scorpions now are hardly relevant. Some might argue that Metallica isn't relevant either, but at least they're able to pay their new bass player $1,000,000 up front.. hardly seems justifiable that they're worried about downloading..

ANYWAY...

it was the summer of '88 and it was VERY hot. I *still to this day* have freckles on my left arm where I got seriously bad blistering sunburn (yes, I rolled up my sleeves like those hessier dork Metallica fans, BIG MISTAKE). We used to call Kingdom Come Kingdom CLONE, and from my vantage point, it was difficult to tell their lead singer from Robert Plant, yes he even had his shirt unbuttoned.. ugh. Yes, they sucked hippo balls.

I was thrilled to see Metallica and they seemed in a pretty good mood that day. It was kind of a short set, but they did play "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "Fade to Black" and "Master of Puppets" from what I remember. They played a "new" song called "Harvester of Sorrow" which was everyone's first taste of the ..AND JUSTICE album that was coming out later that year...

Dokken played next..I always kind of liked Dokken, but they were always 2nd rate to me. They had bad sound problems, that's about all I remembered.. I'm sure they played "Just Got Lucky" and "In My Dreams" - yawn. George Lynch was always somewhat of a hot-shot but I was never part of the whole Guitar player scene. To me it was the songs that mattered and Dokken never had very good songs.

Scorps were next.. they were GREAT. Defiantely the highlight for me, at the time in 1988 they were one of my top 5 favorite bands, so it was great to finally see them live. They did "The Zoo" which pretty much made my day right there. Great set, nothing to complain about there.

I was also very impressed by Van Hagar. They looked like they were having a great time and I had no complaints about them either. Sure, Sammy is not DLR, but I had a great time anyways, they were pros at the top of their game, maybe not as reckless as they used to be, but still enjoyable. We were all very impressed.

Overall though, it was hot as hell, everyone was pretty miserable, they were spraying the crowd with hoses all day. No shade anywhere, big outdoor football arena (the Rubber Bowl in Akron, OH). And as I said, I have freckles on my left arm to prove it!

Hard to believe that was 18 years ago!

-jar