Pretty Maids Return to Bluesiana (2017)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Velden, Carinthia (Velden Am Wörthersee) / Bluesiana Rock Cafe / Austria
Concert date: 28.02.2017
Attendance: 80
Ticket price: €35.00 (advance) / €40.00 (day of show)

Pretty Maids, undisputed legends not just of Danish but of all-European hard rock, hit the road at the end of this February on a joint tour with the most successful Swiss hard rock band of all time, Gotthard, of course. Just like Gotthard, Pretty Maids have a fresh studio album out, released a little earlier than the Swiss band’s record. Titled »Kingmaker«, the new album keeps right on upholding the hard-earned reputation of this respected Danish outfit, who lived their golden days in the eighties, though every one of their albums, and especially the ones released in the new millennium, stands as proof of incredible songwriting quality.

Anyway, it so happened that the tour of both bands swung through the Iberian Peninsula, and from there the two bands had to make their way to Central Europe. Gotthard got a few free days out of it, while Pretty Maids wanted to put theirs to good use on the trip from one end of Europe to the other. So on the last day of this February, for one of their standalone shows, Pretty Maids struck a deal with the famous Bluesiana Rock Cafe club, located in Velden in Austrian Carinthia, where they had already played once, back on 15.05.2014.

Exclusively for this show, 21 Octayne came racing down from Germany to Velden in Carinthia, and they made smart use of the Pretty Maids gig to promote themselves and build up their résumé. The quartet is led by the experienced and excellent guitarist Marco Wriedt, who spent a good chunk of time with the famous German hard rockers Axxis. The band presented their studio debut and put on a superb show in forty minutes. They’re a hard rock band that likes to drift, in their songs, even into the “crunchiness” of retro old-school seventies-style compositions. Wriedt’s Telecaster “grabbed” you something fierce, dynamic bassist Laura Fink added extra value, and the young, explosive singer Julijan, with his Die Ärtze haircut, is a real vocal discovery. An excellent show as an overture to Pretty Maids.

Pretty Maids played in a much more relaxed, approachable light this time than at their first Bluesiana show, when they came across as very formal and reserved the whole way through. In these new times Pretty Maids have gone from a quintet back to a quartet, with keyboardist and additional guitarist Kim Olesen helping out as the fifth man on stage. Vocalist Ronnie Atkins kept the mood cheerful throughout the gig, firing up the crowd by asking those present where they’d all come from. Among other things, he sent a special shout-out to the Slovenian fans, as well as to a handful of much wilder Italian fans who had claimed the spot right up against the stage.

Pretty Maids are a damn seasoned band. Atkins, Hammer and Tschicaja know each other inside out, and Shades proved once again that picking him as the permanent bassist, back in 2011, was a real jackpot. Hammer and Atkins kept eye contact throughout the show and had fun with humor that of course only the two of them get, a kind of communication they’ve built up over years of sticking it out together in the band. It’s no news anymore that Atkins can’t reach the highest registers of vocal execution the way he should and sometimes lags half a tone behind, but with this singer’s otherwise indestructible charisma, you just have to take that in stride. The voice is simply the only living instrument, the only one with an expiry date, and it changes over the years. Ken Hammer once again floored us with his guitar presence. Incredible assurance, the chiseled poise of a man with a truly long track record. The guitarist stuck to the far right and in fact never once took center stage during the show, not even while soloing. He seemed very content in his spot and, as always, directed some words at the crowd with a touch of the lucidity that’s so typical of him.

As expected, the band stuffed the setlist mostly with songs from the current album »Kingmaker«, which the Bluesiana crowd already knew very well that evening. I.N.V.U. and the title track of the excellent »Pandemonium« (2011) still work superbly, next to the otherwise obligatory standards Red, Hot And Heavy, Yellow Rain, Rodeo, a cover of Sykes’ original Please Don’t Leave Me and the closing Back to Back. The band came back out for an encore that was totally expected, with the iron-clad classics of their repertoire Future World and Love Games, and sandwiched between them they fired off the extremely well-received single Little Drops Of Heaven (»Pandemonium«, 2011).

So? Nothing new. A gorgeous new concert get-together, one of the many we’ve had over the years, and there’s no end in sight for them. A band superbly tight, routined, experienced, fiery in execution and presence. An incredible bundle of energetic vibrations that sucks you whole into a world of its own. This time the feelings were all the more intense, because it was a club show, and the vibes coming off the stage touched our nostalgic hearts with an even bigger dose of unfeigned warmth from this unforgettable and unique Danish hard rock outfit.