At Monsters of Rock 1988, Dokken Sold Records While Metallica Sold a Riot

In the summer of 1988, Dokken seemed plausibly near their commercial peak. Back for the Attack had reached No. 13 in the US, and the campy Dream Warriors video, featuring Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, kept them in MTV rotation. The Monsters of Rock stadium tour, with Van Halen at the top, placed them third on the bill—a slot that looked like an endorsement of their drawing power. It turned into a structural problem.

The band had to play directly after Metallica. By that year, Metallica were not a support act in waiting; they were the fast-rising center of thrash metal, with a fanatical live following that treated each show as a rite. At the Los Angeles Coliseum, their set triggered a near-riot. Following that with Dokken’s polished, melodic hard rock revealed a widening gap between genres that the billing order had ignored. Don Dokken later told Classic Rock, “After Metallica went out and played Master of Puppets, we sounded like the f**king Partridge Family!”

He appealed to co-manager Cliff Burnstein to swap positions, acknowledging the financial reality: “I know we’re making twice the money as Metallica, but can you please put ’em on after us, because they’re killing us?” The request was refused. The asymmetry became public record after a Giants Stadium show when The New York Times reviewed the festival. Van Halen, Scorpions, Metallica, and Kingdom Come all received substantive paragraphs. Dokken got a single sentence about concession sales.

The tour wasn’t a failure for business—Dokken’s paycheck said otherwise—but it captured a precise moment when the old metrics of album charts and video hits collided with a live audience that had already moved on.