The Hives - The Forum

The Hives are past masters at staging a rock show, working their way through all of the tricks in ‘Rock Live shows for beginners’, the vast majority of ‘Rock live shows for intermediates’ and making fair headway into the advanced volume. Even before the band take to the stage we have subdued red lighting, a vast backdrop and a tremendous amount of ‘milking it’ as the crowd gets rowdier awaiting the band’s emergence.

Finally five figures emerge resplendent in splendid matching black and white (ubiquitous when it comes to the Hives) ‘college’ style blazers and ties and crash straight into an opening salvo of pure pop-punk Rock & Roll fun.The Holiday spirit is in the air and the unique ‘inside-outside’ d√àcor of the Forum create a festival atmosphere as the crowd slowly lets themselves slip into the grip of the Hives, or to be more precise, the vice like hold of the charismatic and instantly likeable (and simultaneously dislikeable) front man Pelle. His repartee and inter song banter is legendary for it’s humorous self glorification all delivered in faux American drawl and tonight is no disappointment with lines such as “You’ll do anything I tell you to won’t you?”, “I’m so hot, aren’t I?” and “I am the rock and roll preacher here to exorcise your musical demons”.

Whilst Pele is an amazing front man he would be nothing without the solid backing of the remaining four members of the band providing frantic drum beats and an awesome dynamic of jagged guitars for him and the majority of the rest of the room to jump, dance, scissor kick and scream along to. It’s an easy formula, simple chord progressions, catchy riffs, heaps of energy, shed loads of enthusiasm, piles of fun and a good healthy dose of audience interaction that may be frowned upon by many ‘discerning’ musos but is a guarantee of a memorable gig for all concerned and an eleventh hour contender for gig of the year in 2008.

Published in Inpress