Doro at Rockhal

On 16 August 1986, at Monsters of Rock in Castle Donington, Doro Pesch became the first woman to front a metal band at the festival. Forty years on, the “Metal Queen” is still singing heavy metal.

Doro plays the Rockhal Club on Wednesday 16 December. Doors at 19:00.

Doro Pesch has been fronting heavy metal bands since the early 1980s, first with Warlock and then under her own name, and she has outlasted most of the scene she came up in by simply never stopping. The Winter Magic Tour is her December run.

Standing, in the Club, part of Rockhal’s Temple of Metal strand. Her crowd tends to have been coming for decades, which makes for a warmer room than the genre suggests.

Who is Doro?

Doro Pesch was born Dorothee Pesch in Düsseldorf on 3 June 1964, and she has been singing heavy metal for more than four decades. She sang with Snakebite, Beast and Attack before forming Warlock in 1982. On 16 August 1986, fronting Warlock at Monsters of Rock in Castle Donington, she became the first woman to lead a metal band at the festival. By the early 2000s fans and press were calling her the “Metal Queen”.

She has recorded under the name Doro since 1989, with Gene Simmons producing her 1990 album. She headlined the very first Wacken Open Air in 1993 and later wrote “We Are the Metalheads” for the festival’s 20th anniversary. Talking to Blabbermouth about that Donington first, she said: “Much more important is that the fans dig the songs in a live situation.”

Her records

• Burning the Witches (1984): Warlock’s first album.
• Triumph and Agony (1987): Warlock’s biggest success, gold in Germany and number 80 on the US Billboard 200.
• Force Majeure (1989): her first album as Doro.
• Calling the Wild (2000): includes two duets with Lemmy of Motörhead, “Love Me Forever” and “Alone Again”.
• Forever Warriors, Forever United (2018): number 4 in Germany.
• Conqueress, Forever Strong and Proud (2023): released on 27 October 2023 for her 40 years on stage, number 5 in Germany.

Songs to know before the night: “All We Are”, “Für immer”, “Burning the Witches”, “Love Me Forever” and “We Are the Metalheads”.

Awards and milestones

• 1994: Echo award for Best National Female Artist in Germany.
• 2010: her 2,500th concert, played in Düsseldorf on 13 March.
• 2013: Golden God Legend award from Metal Hammer.
• Voted Best International Singer 13 times by readers of the Spanish magazine Heavy Rock.

The Winter Magic Tour 2026

Her winter shows have become a tradition: the 2024 and 2025 editions sold out, and the Winter Magic Tour 2026 promises a setlist of classics, rarities and surprises. The night is part of Rockhal’s Temple of Metal series.