Doro – ‘Triumph And Agony Live’ (Rare Diamonds)

By Monk

It has becoming somewhat of a de rigeur task for artists and bands to celebrate a particular anniversary of one of their more acclaimed albums by performing the same in its entirety at a handful of shows and then releasing the result in the myriad of different forms which are available to us today. Doro Pesch proved to be no exception to this growing trend when, back in 2017 she decided to perform Warlock’s fourth and final album in its entirety at that year’s Sweden Rock festival. Now, almost exactly a year before the studio album marks its next landmark (it’s 35^th anniversary), the set has been dusted down and given a bumper audio-visual translation for the home audience…

The most obvious thing to do, of course, is to play the album in its original track order. But that is not a formula followed by all bands. For example, when Tyketto marked the 25^th anniversary of their debut album, ‘Don’t Come Easy’ in 2016, they played it in reverse order, so that they could end the set with the “big pop” of the hit single. Doro undertook something of similar approach, changing the running order so that her traditional closer of ‘All We Are’ (the first track on the studio album) would remain that ever-rousing finale.

Another side of changing the order of the tracks is that it actually serves to provide for more cohesion in terms of their delivery in the live environment, being able to shift the songs around to suit the different ebb and flow of a live performance compared with that of someone sitting at home (bearing in mind that, like so many albums of its generation, ‘T&A’ was released in the days before we could digitally shuffle tracklisings to suit our own tastes). And that definitely is the case here, as the set is well-paced and superbly executed.

Having only the audio version of the release by which to judge (although, almost inevitably, the DVD version has been uploaded to the good ol’ interweb), and bearing mind that the recordings are several years old, it is immediately obviously that Doro is still in tremendous voice – something she proved yet again on her triumphant return to the Über Kingdom earlier this month, when she headlined the Rockin’ The Bowl festival – and revelled in the joy of bringing these songs, and especially the few which don’t continue to regularly feature in her live set, back to dynamic life.

My only complaint is that the overall volume is a bit on the low side, and I had to crank the speakers up several notches to enjoy its full bombastic glory. But that’s a minor quibble, as ‘T&A Live’ is a superb reminder of what a great album the original was, and remains. As my colleague said in her review of that Sheffield show, Long Live The Queen! She sure as hell still rules the metal world \m/

‘Triumph And Agony Live’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.

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