The Hives
The Palace, Melbourne
Tuesday 26 July 2011
Here for Splendour in the Grass this weekend,
The Hives arrive on stage at the Palace so very...tall. I mean, I know they're Swedish but...makes sense I guess. Perhaps it helps that the five members are decked out in top hats and tails, making them even more grand than usual. Behind them sits a giant screen featuring the grinning visage of singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist (or someone looking very much like him) with his hands raised in hackles, a rope descending from each finger and disappearing behind the band. Giving the impression that the Hives are but helpless puppets on a string, dancing for our pleasure.
Which they do tonight of course, but it's initially a difficult sell beyond the mosh pit as the balconies stand stoic. It's a cold Tuesday night after all. But the band don't let up for a moment, ripping into "opener" 'Come On' before really letting fly with 'Main Offender'. So boisterous is this one-two adrenaline rush that have the audacity to follow with a new song ('Go Right Ahead') and then another couple of raucous hits in 'Die, All Right!' and 'Walk Idiot Walk'. Smoke if you got 'em.
From there it becomes a bit tougher, Almqvist eliciting roars and giggles every time he waxes on between songs about how wonderful the Hives are and how, "as a small child! I always dreamed of the hands of Melbourne! And now I'm really here, I can't believe I can see it with my own eyes!! LET ME SEE THE HANDS OF MELBOURNE!!!". It works a treat of course, his charisma alluring enough for even the staunchest wall-huggers, and by the third act of the set the whole crowd are onside. So much so that during 'Tick Tick Boom' Almqvist sits down on the stage and asks the entire crowd to follow suit. Which they do, balcony included, although they do take some cajoling. (One Seargent of the fun police on the dancefloor stands, allowing himself to be singled out: "Are you from Sydney?", enquires a disapproving Almqvist.) By the time the band kicks back in and we all jump up on our feet, it's the equivalent of the low pass filter breakdown in dance music: the quiet build of tension begets the huge release. And it is of course, pretty great.
When Almqvist isn't chewing scenery via rattling off at the crowd, wiggling his bum, leaping off the bass drum or performing one of those slightly not-quite-high-enough-to-look-very-easy leg kicks, the band does a quietly determined job. Guitarist Nicholaus Arson (aka Niklas Almqvist, aka brother of Pelle) is the most animated, playing the never-flagging, "dangerous" guitar-slinger to its theatrical hilt. Bassist Dr. Matt Destruction and guitarist Vigilante Carlstroem play the solid sidemen, whilst brilliant drummer—and real backbone of the band—Chris Dangerous flails about angrily on his kit up the back. It's a wonderful unit and you'd be hard pressed to fault them on any given night beyond simply song selection.
Of which nothing gets missed here, beyond (somehow) 'Two-Timing Touch and Broken Bones'. The Hives are master showmen, and though tonight was obviously a Tuesday for all concerned—the crowd, the band, the bar—The Hives managed to make us forget it all, if not quite ourselves.
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(Pics: CC Hua)