Screamin' Live

Okay, this live album could probably have been a lot bettet if the band hadn't been unlucky. Ken Hammer broke his hand shortly after the gig in Tivoli and PM had to cancel some concerts (including one at Roskilde Festivalen) that were meant to be recorded. Therefore the band only had the recordings from this one gig for their planned livealbum and they chose to release it.
There's nothing really wrong with this album. Perhaps there are too many songs from the Scream album included, but on the other hand this were the Scream tour... but still, it would have been nice to have had a few more songs from Future World and Red Hot And Heavy...
The audience is somewhat ignorant to what the band is playing... They only seem a little enthusiastic when Atkins gets them to sing along but there's several times he's asking them twice before they really react. Sometimes you get the feeling that there were very few REAL fans present at this gig.
Being Danish, I'm able to understand what Atkins says to the audience during and between the songs but it must be quite frustrating for a foreign person (outside of Scandinavia) to hear all this and not understand one bit!

Okay, let's get to the music.

The Maids seem to be in good shape and play with a lot of enthusiasm despite the quite sappy audience, but the keyboard is way too apparent and Ken Hammer's guitar is at times put away in the background. Very disappointing that this great guitarplayer's skills aren't put more central in the sound.
Atkins voice is great as always although it seems at times he's having problems hitting his high screeching notes, but overall he's doing fine.
Kenn Jackson's bass is very little present. I bet he did what he always does great but it somehow is lost on the live album!
Michael Fast's drums are there all the time. They might even be what sounds best on this album.

The setlist is okay as aforementioned, I miss some of the older songs, but that's forgiveable since it's just a single gig from the Scream tour.
The best songs here are the last 5. Please Don't Leave Me where they play the chorus slightly different from the studioversion and it's on this track that the audience is most alive.
The next four songs are PM classics: Love Games, Future World, Back To Back and Red Hot And Heavy. Actually the crowd wakes up here at the end and when Atkins asks them if they want another one, they've actually gone a little crazy compared to the first half of the show and PM plays one helluva version of Red Hot And Heavy!

Conclusion must be that this disc could have been a lot better but since this is a live album from one single gig with a sappy audience, it's actually turned out okay. It's not this album that will make you like the Maids, but it's worth getting if you're already a fan. But if you want to hear Pretty Maids live on disc, then go get Alive At Least which is much better than this.