 Inside
Irving Plaza all is calm. People are getting their drinks,
buying t-shirts, helping themselves to free condoms &
registering to vote at the Rock The Vote table. Rock fans
are filling the venue watching the opening band, Reigning
Sound, & clapping between songs. The lovely Swedish
ladies of Sahara Hotnights take the stage, burning us with
their melodies & arousing us with their beauty. But
all is still calm. Until The Hives hit the stage.
The
Hives don’t so much open their set with “Abra
Cadaver”; they see the audience as something sealed
in a plastic wrapper that the band will use their teeth
to open. Drummer Chris Dangerous pounds out the steady backbeat
that allows this band of colorful extroverts to bounce about
like young happy maniacs. As the band launches into “Walk
Idiot Walk” with the staccato guitar riffs of Vigilante
Carlstrom & Nicholas Arson, vocalist Howlin’ Pelle
Alqvist rebounds about the stage like an unstoppable superball.
He’s the smiling, wild-eyed master of ceremonies at
this get together to tear it apart. His stage banter is
witty & jovial & his hyperactive motions take him
across the stage, onto the speakers, diving into the pit
& trekking through the balcony with the crowd towards
the VIP area. By Howlin’ Pelle’s own admission,
he’s a very important person, so if anybody should
be up there, it’s him.
The
set is mostly comprised of songs off their new record, Tyrannosaurus
Hives. They slam into “Two-Timing Touch & Broken
Bones” & “Dead Quote Olympics”. They
also surprise the crowd with “Here We Go Again”
from their debut album, Barely Legal. But it’s the
songs from Vini Vidi Vicious that receive the most reaction.
“Main Offender” had the crowd squealing “Why
me?”. When the band started playing “Hate To
Say I Told You So” the crowd began to pogo in unison
& clapped along with bassist Matt Destruction during
his solo. After “Supply & Demand” The Hives
left us with the words, “God bless you & fuck
you.” What other parting word could be uttered by
a band with only 2 speeds, 140 mph & stop?
R
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