Pretty Maids and Artillery - Amager Bio, København 8/27/10
From Aural Innovations #41 (October 2010)
I decided to go to this show quite late and it was already sold out. By luck I was talking with my friends in Black Succubi and a friend of theirs came up and had a hand full of free passes for the show. I explained that I had no ticket and got lucky! He gave me one. I told him I would buy him a few beers but never saw him the whole night even though I hung out near the Black Succubi guys. Had a good time with Lars, Kaj, Susan and Klaus, all of whom I have been to Sweden Rock with.
Pretty close to 21:00 Artillery hit the stage and after the recorded intro to their debut LP, Fear of Tomorrow, they ripped into Time Has Come. If it were not for the very metallic and thin, sharp guitar sound of Michael, the sound would have been massive. They followed this with one of my all time favourite thrash tracks, The Almighty. The Slayer like sound is evident at times, but remember these guys developed this sound on their own in parallel and not ripping Slayer off. Show Your Hate, Out of the Sky, and Into the Universe followed, all from the debut. They dropped either Eternal War or Deeds of Darkness and did not play King, Thy name is Slayer or Fear of Tomorrow. Then we got a few songs from their latest record. It was a very solid show and people really seem to enjoy it. The new young singer, he was excellent. Perfect metal voice for this type of band. Cool to see them again.
Set list: Time has Come, The Almighty, Show your Hate, Out of the Sky, Into the Universe, The Etermal War, When Death Comes, 10,000 Devils, Rise above it all
Before Pretty Maids hit the stage some terrible new Danish band came out and lip sync'd to a bad song called Angel Eyes, not once, but twice. It was for a promo video in front of a live audience and it was filmed but we had to suffer through the crap song, twice.
Pretty Maids hit the stage and played the entire Red Hot and Heavy record all the way through and this was really good. They have not rocked this hard since the late 80's and they seem to really be enjoying it a lot and some of these songs were really fantastic. The sound was also really good and not as sharp as Artillery. After they played that record they left the stage at 45 minutes and then came back and played several songs from their new record, Pandemonium, and some of their pop hits and ending the show with Future World (1987 LP, I think). I had never seen the band for a full concert and they were very professional and all great players. Singer was great, drummer really pounds and the guitar player can rip it up for sure with his wall of Engl Amps! Fun night.
Set List: Back to Back, Red hot and Heavy, Waiting for the Time, Cold Killer, Battle of Pride, Night Danger, A place in the night, Queen of Dreams, Little Darling (Phil Lynott song), Pandemonium, LNVU, Little Drops of Heaven, Please don't hate me, Future World
Reviewed by Scott Heller