Pretty Maids - 'Maid In Japan-Future World Live 30th Anniversary' Released 22 May 2020 Frontiers Music srl

Wow – this is a brilliant live album and movie. Obviously I’ve heard of Pretty Maids but clearly I’ve never really heard them properly as I don’t have much of their stuff. That’s my loss as there’s over 30 years of quality music on here.

Although not massively well-known over here, apparently they are big in Japan, their native Denmark and Linlithgow. This release is from a November 2018 concert on the tour in which they played the whole of their seminal 1987 album ‘Future World.’ Now, I bought a lot of albums in 1987 but somehow this one never came to my attention. Maybe it got squeezed out as there were just too many great albums that year (Appetite FD, Hysteria, 1987, Permanent Vacation etc) but this is a very good slice of 80s rock and definitely criminally under-rated with hindsight.

The nine Future World songs are played first, starting with the title track and then the statement anthem ‘We Came to Rock.’ Clearly the Japanese crowd had also come to rock as they’re loudly involved and word perfect from the start. There’s a real mix of songs on this album and in their back catalogue – sometimes rocking hard but also hitting some real melodic high spots. It was largely the Japanese market that sustained the band during the 90s and they have a predilection for the softer side of the band’s repertoire over there. Their biggest hit back in the day was a cover of the John Sykes / Phil Lynott wimp-fest ‘Please Don’t Leave Me’ which was included in the set list on the night but does not appear on the CD / DVD release. ‘Eye of the Storm’ is the big ballad from Future World but ‘Love Games’ is as fine a 1980’s soft rock track as you’ll hear and later we are also treated to ‘Long Way To Go’, ‘Rodeo’ and the modern melodic rock magnificence of ‘Little Drops of Heaven.’

Japanese live albums have been a staple of the rock scene for years through iconic releases from Purple, Scorpions, Cheap Trick and others. Ronnie Atkins manages to tick off most of the Jap-rock bingo boxes with a few ‘Konbanwa’, ‘Kanpai’ and ‘Domo Arigato’s. Although this is billed as a Tokyo show, he refers to the crowd / venue as ‘Kawasaki’ throughout. That is because Club Citta, the 1,300 capacity club where it was recorded, is in the town of that name which is located about one hour down the rail line towards Yokohama.

I mostly know Ronnie from Nordic Union and his stellar performances with the mighty Avantasia. He’s on great form here and happily the most recent news on his health is much more positive. He and Ken Hammer (‘Hammer-san’) on guitar are the only guys in the current band who were involved in the original 1987 recording. Rene Shades has been on bass since 2011 and newbies Chris Laney and Allan Sorensen also perform strongly. It’s a really well produced album, capturing the power and precision in a high quality recording, with keys and pristine backing vocals featuring prominently to garnish a magnificently meaty offering from the on-stage performers.

Of the newer songs, we get the title tracks from ‘Kingmaker’ and ‘Sin-Decade’ plus ‘Mother of All Lies’, ‘Bull’s Eye’ and the afore mentioned ‘Little Drops..’. It’s all beautifully filmed too with high production values and crystal clear. This is actually an outstanding value package featuring the gig on DVD plus a substantial number of promo videos for singles and extras including interviews and a documentary. If, like me, you’ve been dumb enough to miss out on these guys until now then this is a great opportunity to catch up – don’t miss it.