Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Urban Bolta
Venue: Z7 / Pratteln / Switzerland
Concert date: 03.10.2011
Attendance: 1000
Ticket price: 31€
The first day of October brought a seriously interesting experience. Five rocker backsides piled into a trusty steel steed and headed northwest, to the land where milk and honey supposedly flow. The all-day drive was a trip, especially the stretch through Switzerland, which really is a gorgeous country blessed with natural riches. The destination was the little town of Pratteln, in the north of Switzerland, right outside Basel.
You had to head pretty far north to catch Pretty Maids live, one of the driving forces of Danish heavy metal for the past few decades. Mentored by the NWOBHM movement of the early eighties, they developed over the years their own unique, strongly melodic style, and they carried it on successfully with last year’s album “Pandemonium” (review here). Pretty Maids have been adopted by fans in Scandinavia and the German-speaking countries, so to see them play you usually have to look north. This time was no different.
Z7 is one of those venues where pretty much every tour by any mid-sized act stops, which made it appealing in itself, since it meant getting to know yet another packed club of worldwide renown. The place sits in an industrial part of Pratteln, right next to the bypass. The inside is quite elongated and slightly reminds me of the layout of the Tonhalle in Munich, only with an even bigger capacity. Apparently Z7 can cram in up to 1500 people. Tonight the venue was nicely filled, though not sold out. And what a view the crowd was! Where gigs back home are dominated by youngsters and I’m usually somewhere in the middle of the age scale, this time I found myself among the youngest in the hall. The rock culture tradition is very much alive in Switzerland!
This was no ordinary gig. Pretty Maids had promised a proper spectacle, which they’ll immortalize on a future DVD release. On their website they took suggestions from fans, which they factored in when putting together the setlist. Two buses packed with their most loyal followers were supposed to arrive from their native Denmark, but because of mass cancellations they sadly never hit the road. Still, the mood was great as we waited for nine o’clock and the arrival of the iron Danes on stage.
When the lights went out, it was clear showtime had arrived. Pretty Maids tore across the stage with two fast, atmospheric rippers, Pandemonium and I.N.V.U.. Then, for the first time that night, the spotlight caught keyboardist Morten Sandager, hidden away at the back left, who kicked off the ballad Hell On High Heels. It’s a song the Danes never put on their setlists, but this time the fans voted it in.
Pretty Maids are true stage executioners, and even a blind man would have noticed how much they enjoy performing. The band’s front men, vocalist Ronnie Atkins and Ken Hammer, swapped positions countless times, hitting the front rows from the edge of the stage with vocal runs and guitar solos. New bassist Rene Shades, who replaced the legendary King Diamond bassist Hal Patino this year, did his part too. The likeable Shades, decked out in a snow-white jacket and hat, kept up energetically with his more experienced bandmates, though lacking charisma, he’ll need a good while before we fans accept him as a full member. Watching over everything from the back was the short drummer Allan Tschicaja, who was barely visible above his kit. Tschicaja has an interesting drumming style, putting twice as much energy as needed into every single hit, and as the hardest-working member of the band, he quickly won the audience over.
For this celebratory show the Danes put together a tasty mix of older and newer material. The latest album “Pandemonium” was represented by four songs, with a select collage of eighties and nineties stuff wedged in between. The intense finish went to songs from “Red, Hot and Heavy” (1984) and “Future World” (1987), and in between Pretty Maids slipped in the ballad Please Don’t Leave Me with its simple two-line chorus, which we repeated countless times, sometimes backed by Ken’s guitar, other times by Sandager’s keyboards. Fitting for a spectacle, the encore also came with visual extras in the form of pyrotechnics.
Pretty Maids are a band that, even in their best days, never got the big break that would have made them stars. So these days they still have to prove themselves just like they used to. The gears of their stage machinery were driven by founding members Atkins and Hammer, and the highlights generally came at the entrances to the choruses, when backing vocalists joined Ron and added irresistibly catchy melodies. But one thing is clear. Over the years Ron’s voice has been steadily wearing down, so he went into the more demanding lines with the handbrake on, and during the instrumental parts he preventively refreshed his throat with a sip or two of water. Even after the show he didn’t hang out with the other band members and fans, instead slipping off to bed to gather strength for the next day’s gig in Bochum, Germany. The incredible two-hour-and-fifteen-minute set wrung everyone out and, at least for a moment, took us back to a time when music was still played from the heart.
Photos: Urban Bolta, Jani Mihevc Cah (1,20)
Setlist
1. Pandemonium 2. I.N.V.U. 3. Hell On High Heels 4. Wake Up To The Real World 5. Destination Paradise 6. Another Shot Of Your Love 7. Scream 8. Walk Away 9. Lethal Heroes 10. Nightmare In The Neighbourhood 11. It Comes At Night 12. Queen Of Dreams & drum solo 13. Spooked 14. Savage Heart 15. Clay 16. Yellow Rain 17. Rock The House 18. Back To Back 19. Rodeo 20. Love Games —————- 21. Future World 22. Little Drops Of Heaven 23. Please Don’t Leave Me 24. Red, Hot And Heavy
Photo gallery
