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Get Breaking News on your cellWe were there: the Hives at HOB
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November 2008
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Often, a performer's live persona is the antithesis of his normal one. If that's the case with Per Almqvist, he's a Swede dweeb champion. You've gotta figure that's the case with the Hives' singer. He uses a stage name, Howlin' Pelle Almquist, to bound his public ego, as does the rest of this genius garage-punk band. Heck: the string pounders all have amps with custom cabinetry that tout each's particular performance handle (Per's guitarist brother Niklas': "Nicholaus" on the head, "Arson" on the speaker box). For most acts, such pompous trickery would be tantamount to challenging Mike Tyson to a rules-suspended street brawl. But for the Hives, it's kitsch that clicks because the act is so endearing and convincing, as proven during its howlin' 85-minute set Wednesday at House of Blues. Make no mistake: Howlin' Pelle deserves his name, and not just because he lets yelps fly with barely contained discrimination as the band tears through its Kinks-on-crack-like material. He's a stomping, strutting, Jagger- and Pop-ape-ing dervish in a natty black schoolboy suit who wears faux-cockiness on his sleeve like a military rank. How's this for song-break hype mongering: "We are the Hives. We are the Hives. What part of the Hives don't you understand?" "When I say this is good stuff, I mean yours truly ... and, of course, the rest of the Hives, too." "There's nothing cooler than doing what I say." All that would come off as tomfoolery if Mr. Almqvist and the Hives weren't so entertaining. Witnessed: an exceedingly rare hipster mosh pit during "A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T" (such pits bounce and lean more than swirl, by the way). The schtick works not just because the Hives' enthusiastic delivery teeters on bedlam so much that it threatens to collapse despite its hook- and riff-seeded simplicity, but because the Hives have stuck with it since its inception more than a decade ago. The only disappointment is that the band didn't throw out some of the more experimental tracks off of its latest, The Black and White Album; the 18-song set was heavy with the choicest cuts from it and the act's two previous albums (the trite encore: "Bigger Hole To Fill" and its two signature songs, "Hate to Say I Told You So" and "Tick Tick Boom."). No, the Hives won't dominate the world anytime soon. But Per and Niklas have an alter-ego outlet that kicks yours and mine to the floor, without teeth. |
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