swopedesign's Full Review: Yesterday & Today by Dokken
I'm an early Dokken fan, but I found Yesterday & Today available at a fair price point recently and purchased it. I'd not purchased a Dokken album or CD since the mid-1980s, so I wasn't familiar with the newer material per se on this release, and didn't know what to expect. The CD packaging is sparse (no booklet, just inserts), so I wasn't aware that the tracks on this disc were recorded live (the back insert DOES say "Recorded Live," but it is small at the bottom). I came to this disc like a "new" listener, and was at first disappointed then pleasantly surprised.
Tracks:
1) Maddest Hatter
2) In My Dreams
3) Into the Fire
4) Breaking the Chains
5) Kiss of Death
6) Tooth & Nail
7) Just Got Lucky
8) Erase the Slate
9) Unchain the Night
10) Alone Again
Of the 10 songs on this disc, 7 are classic Dokken: In My Dreams, Into the Fire, Breaking the Chains, Tooth & Nail, Just Got Lucky, Unchain the Night, and Along Again. The other 3 songs are Maddest Hatter, Kiss of Death and Erase the Slate. These of course are new to me. I'd like to have been familiar with the original released recordings to better review and respond to them.
Dokken: Yesterday & Today, like most live albums, offers the band opportunity to deviate from the original recordings and generate excitement in the crowd with unexpected surprises. KISS is perhaps the best band for live recordings, IMHO. By comparison, Dokken: Yesterday & Today fell short of my expectations at first. The tracks on this CD sound little like the tracks from their original recordings, in part because they are a great deal more acoustical, so they stray from the familiar Dokken tunes I know and love, and unfamiliar territory is always uncomfortable. If you come to this recording EXPECTING it to be a simple compilation of previously released material (as I had), you will be disappointed at first.
But that disappointment will not last long. Only thru Maddest Hatter. These live recordings should be interesting to Dokken fans because fans can now hear some of the band's best-known and fan-favorite tracks performed live, in concert. Because these tracks are so different from the original releases, the fans must also rediscover these songs, track by track.
I found it especially interesting to hear some of my favorite Dokken hits performed in a nearly unplugged, acoustical version. In My Dreams, Into the Fire, Just Got Lucky, and Unchain the Night are particularly enjoyable as near-acoustic tracks. Great songs, put to the acoustic test. And they pass!
I had expected Alone Again to likewise be acoustic, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear it accompanied by piano instead of steel guitar through the first two-thirds! This drastic change is very exciting, as the song is still as powerful as its original release. Perhaps even more so....
Tooth & Nail, an early driving heavy metal hit, does not disappoint, either. It opens with a powerful guitar solo and slides into a rendition as close to the original release as we're likely to hear live (or recorded live). This track follows the original release very closely, and for that fact is ALMOST disappointing that it isn't acoustic! That would be a track I'd have to hear!
As for Maddest Hatter, Kiss of Death and Erase the Slate, I can only guess about how far they deviate from the original recordings, since they're unfamiliar to me. All three are laden with electric guitar and drums, so I believe they parallel the original releases closely. They're not bad. They're not classic Dokken, but Dokken fans will recognize the Dokken characteristics in them.
Released by BMG (yeah, you know them, likely joined their music club at one point!), Dokken: Yesterday & Today is an interesting compilation of live recordings, particularly for early Dokken fans. Dokken offers up some interesting alternative versions of some of their best-loved classic hits, alternates that, for some fans, are as good as the original releases but with a different flavor. The new tracks, rich with characteristic guitar and drums, are clearly Dokken, too, and likely follow the original releases closely.
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