Doro/Skullfist @ Annex Wreckroom, Toronto ON, Sept 11, 2009

By Albert Mansour

Friday evening traffic made for some really shitty driving conditions to go from Hamilton to T.O. Getting into Toronto to pick up my ticket at the local music store “Rotate this” was another pain in the ass trying to find parking in the downtown core. However, with my missions accomplished I still had fifteen minutes to burn before the opening set by Skullfist.

I bounded through the doors directly to the “merch” table expecting to pick up the new Doro cd or vinyl. Like always, I was out of luck, but there were T-shirts for the 2009 tour for $30, ball caps for $20 and posters at $ 5.00 – overall the merch was reasonable priced. The opening act, Toronto’s Skullfist, got on stage almost right on time at 8:02. I noticed a very big NWOBHM influence on their sound when I first this band opening at Summer Slaughter 2009 and this was just the right start off for night. The band punded few a few songs off their demo, including “Blackout” and “Sign Of The Warrior” and I have to say, they write some damn good riffs. Good live band – I was again very impressed! But at the third song the air was filled with some awful feedback from the speaker; add to that some sloppy guitar work and “Heavier Than Metal” ended up being “a real bummer”but shit happens for a reason! Doing a six song set with a cover of Grim Reaper’s 1984 hit “See You In Hell”  that was just perfect, this band was indeed good to the last chord.

Skullfist Set list
1 blackout
2 sign of the warrior
3 heavier than metal
4 see you in hell – grim reaper
5 ride the beast
6 no false metal

Doro hit the stage at 8:53 PM, starting off with “Earthshaker Rock” from Warlock’s second album, 1984’s Hellbound. Doro’s vocals are still crystal – just like they were on the first Warlock album I picked up back in the day. The band was completely amazing on this evening too. Fast and heavy at all the right times. By the time they broke into the night’s third song “Burning The Witches” the sound was very good and the band was in top shape. Every instrument well audible and the atmosphere was just awesome! Nevertheless, Doro even managed to surprise all in attendace with a really clever cover of Judas Priest’s “Breaking The Law.” Doro played a couple of tracks from each album, which was awesome, but I was hoping that she would play more of the Warlock stuff than Doro’s solo albums. It was a close call, but in the end it was pretty much a 50/50 split between the two bands. The show was unfortunately cut short and the band’s last three songs were not played at all, but seeing Doro for the second time was a huge treat. In my opinion Doro is the best female heavy metal vocalist of all time; it was a real gift just to catch her for the first time back in June 2007 – that show was amazing but seeing her for the second time was like winning the metal lottery. I just love Doro’s positive attitude towards life, her fans and everything else and this show was by far a lot tighter and more complete than 2007’s. Even though the set was cut short by three tracks at 10:23 PM – I was a bit upset about that, especially when I heard it was for some crazy dance party that supposedly had to start at 10:30 – the real sad part of the night was to see only 70 – 100 headbangers attending this special performance by the goddess metal queen at the Wreckroom. Overall this was a FUCKING damn good solid show with killer metal tunes. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Doro set list
Earthshaker rock
I rule the ruins
Burning the witches
True as steel
Night of the warlock
Fight for rock
Above the ashes
Unholy love
Metal Racer / Drum solo
Metalheads
hellbound
Breaking the law – Judas priest
All We Are
fight