Nothing can stop Swedish rock princes The Hives from being the most electrifying live band in the world.
Even a last minute moving of venues, from the cavernous Festival Hall to the decidedly smaller but more punter-friendly Palace Theatre, and the lack of a new album to plug wasn’t going to slow the dapper rock juggernaut that is The Hives.
How easily we forget how incredible this band is. Backed by a spooky puppeteer banner, the lads strode out in full tails, white bow ties and top hats (leaving us questioning: sartorially, how they can top that?), the band ripped through their jaunty, deceptively simple catalogue of definant tales of schoolyard rebellion.
They cherry-picked tunes from end to end – everything from the blistering ‘Die Alright!’ to the strutting ‘Walk Idiot Walk’ to the jittery ‘Won’t Be Long’ – all the while Greatest-Frontman-In-The-World Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist reminding us how privileged we were to be witness to the show.
He did the splits, climbed into the crowd, stood tall on the bass drum, chicken-walked a la Jagger, and roused the crowd into clapping along to song after song. It’s a Herculean effort to whip a crowd into such a frenzy and he was helped by scores of drumsticks tossed into the crowd from Chris Dangerous and the careless guitar-tossing moves of Nicholaus Arson.
This action would’ve been enough. The instantly catchy tunes would’ve been enough. Even the airing of a couple of promising new anthems would’ve been enough.
Then they did two things I’ve never seen at a rock show before.
At the crescendo of ‘Tick Tick Boom’ each band member froze mid-flail. The crowd went nuts. They remained frozen. They crowd went nuttier. They stayed like that for over a minute, which is like an eon when you’re talking about the constant action of a Hives concert, as the crowd applauded in growing disbelief. Then “Tick tick tick tick BOOM” and they were done.
But of course they weren’t done. They returned to the stage and got the entire crowd to sit down on the floor, which I’ve never seen a band accomplish without being a snoozy folk act. Then, up comes the crowd for another few killers until they closed with the greatest riff of the last decade (and a bit) from ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’.
As the cheers slowly subsided from deafening, Almqvist cheekily offers his top hat for tips and the band unites for a deep theatrical bow. Once again, The Hives teach every other band a lesson in rock n’ roll.
