Deadly Lullabies - Live

I've never seen King Diamond live but have always wanted to. I've also always wondered how he would be able to reproduce his music live because most of it is multi-track layered and overdubbed in the original studio recordings. I must say that I was very skeptical about the quality of the performance and the material released on "Deadly Lullabies -Live" because King Diamond's first live release, "In Concert 1987 - Abigail", was horrible. Although the production on the recording was good, the vocals were off key, the band sounded unrehearsed, etc. The only honest part of that release was that there were no overdubs added. All the mistakes were left in, a true testament to what live is all about. Why bother even listening to it? I don't know what King Diamond did this time around but man, the performances on "Deadly Lullabies -Live" are flawless! The album was recorded during the band's last U.S. tour and was mixed at guitarist Andy LaRocque's Los Angered studio outside Gothenburg, Sweden. The production and mix on this album is just right! King sounds amazing! His vocal performance is stellar! He's in tune, note for note on every track!. His voice holds up very well during those falsetto vibrato octaves. And the band is tight and on target musically. Andy LaRocque shreds on lead! Guitarist Mike Wead also compliments LaRocque's playing. Bassist Hal Patino and drummer Matt Thompson help keep the rhythm section driving. King also has Livia Zita (the female vocalist used on "The Puppet Master") sing on "So Sad". Even the crowd participates on some of the songs. I've never heard King Diamond sound this good! So I must question as to why this is.... I'm pretty sure that the songs on "Deadly Lullabies -Live" are not just from one night's performance, but hand picked from many shows because of the following quote by King Diamond: "We wanted to have the album released earlier than this, but it seemed quite inappropriate as there was no tour to support "Abigail II - The Revenge", and we obviously have to conduct more shows than that if we want to select some of the better parts for a live release". So I do wonder if there was any over dubbing done or crowd participation added, like KISS "Alive!". I mean, there are plenty of times during the songs where you hear King doing both high and low octave harmony vocals. The question is whether these were pre-recorded parts played while he sang live or overdubbed after the shows. My main complaint, as with any live album, is the song selection. While King does include most of his classics like "Halloween", "The Family Ghost" "Sleepless Nights" and "No Presents For Christmas", there are no songs from "Voodoo", "The Spider's Lullaybye", "The Graveyard" or "House of God". I also would have preferred more songs from "Conspiracy" (only "Sleepless Nights" made it) and a few Mercyful Fate tracks as well. CD 1 is only 41:51 and and CD 2 is 48:11. You can fit almost 80 minutes of music on a CD these days. Surely King could have given us more tracks. Despite the above, "Deadly Lullabies -Live" deserves a place amongst the rest of anyone's King Diamond collection. It's a very listenable album and sure to please fans of this horror metal legend!