PRETTY MAIDS played its first concert in nearly five years on June 16, 2024 at Forbrændingen in Albertslund, Denmark. The band was billed as KINGMAKERS for the “secret” performance, which served as a warm-up gig for PRETTY MAIDS‘s official return to the live stage on June 20, 2024 at the Copenhell festival in Copenhagen.

PRETTY MAIDS also played at last year’s Time To Rock festival in Knislinge, Sweden and at the Jailbreak festival in Horsens, Denmark. Last month PRETTY MAIDS performed aboard the 2025 edition of the annual Monsters Of Rock Cruise.

In December 2023, Atkins, who is battling stage four cancer, told Jorge Botas of Portugal’s Metal Global about the band’s return: “Yeah, well, we were planning on a few selected PRETTY MAIDS shows. It’s not gonna be a hell of a lot, I think. We’re gonna do maybe five, six festivals during the summer or something.”

He continued: “I know there’s a lot of fans out there that wanna see the band again, at least to make some kind of closure. It all ended in a wrong way because I got sick, and while I was sick, I couldn’t do shit for six months. And in that time, we released a new album. We never had the chance to tour with it. Then came the lockdown. So we just wanna go out and play a couple of shows. How much it’s gonna be, I don’t know. I don’t know how much more we’re gonna do. We might continue. I don’t know. It all depends a little bit on my health as well. You know. So, now I’ve been releasing a lot of music for the last couple of years, and now I feel like 2024, I intend to do a lot more live shows. I really love to do that. ‘Cause I like the close encounter with the fans, whether it’s a big festival with 50,000 or it’s 200 people in a club, I don’t care. I mean, I like them both, actually. But let’s see.”

In September 2023, before the PRETTY MAIDS reunion was officially announced, Atkins was asked in an interview with Power Metal Point if there were any plans for him to do anything again with the long-running Danish hard rock outfit. He responded: “There’s been issues between the band since 2019, particularly between me and Ken. But now we’re actually talking again. We just met a little while ago, and we still have some business through 40 years we have to discuss sometimes on mails. I think it’s gonna end up that we will bury the hatchet, if nothing else for the fans.”

He continued: “It’s always been a love-hate relationship, and I can’t confirm anything, but I think we might do some selected gigs next year or something like that. Because the whole thing ended in a bad way and I got sick and we had a brand new album out in 2019 and we never hit the road with it, ’cause we had to cancel the tour. Then the lockdown came, the corona thing. So, yeah, let’s see, let’s see. We might do something [in 2024].”

In December 2022, Atkins painted a more bleak picture of PRETTY MAIDS‘ future, telling Dawn Osborne of TotalRock: “We haven’t seen each other since 2019. And there are some issues within the band that haven’t been [resolved]. So nothing is happening. Ken is doing some other projects. Everybody is doing their own things, kind of. I’m not saying we won’t get back together one day. Maybe — I don’t know. But time is not on our side. Let’s see. It would need some talks — a band meeting and some talk — before we go on. I’m a bit like ‘I’ve been there, done that.’ I mean, sometimes I miss it. On the other hand, I’m on with something else now, doing my own stuff.”

Formed in early 1982 by Atkins and Hammer, PRETTY MAIDS‘ second album, 1987’s “Future World”, is still today regarded as a classic.