The Greatest Show on Earth

September 6, 2012
Commodore Ballroom
Vancouver, British Columbia

No, I'm not talking about the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. I'm talking about Swedish New Millennium garage rock revivalists the Hives.

Fully-suited ninjas complete with hoof-toed boots as stagehands, giant puppet-strings shooting forth from the figure in the backdrop, diabolic intro piano music as the ninjas flanked the sides of the stage in guard-positions - I'd always read that the Hives were "the greatest live band in the world," most vociferously touted as such by Spin Magazine (at least by my reading), and before the Hives even took the stage, they already began living up to the acclaim. And after having finally seen them live at the Commodore Ballroom after a ten-year wait, I have to say, until the rush of the show finally wore off a couple of days later, they made a true believer out of me.

The Hives emerged fully-suited, dapper as always with long-tailed coats and, on this tour, top hats, giving the band the even more theatrical appearance of magicians. But the Hives didn't need any magic or parlour tricks to cast the crowd into a frenzy, just their music and frontperson Howlin' Pelle Almqvist's Mick Jagger-swagger - his marching and stamping around and mic/mic-stand acrobatics; watching Pelle toss his mic-and-stand like a ballerina partner and catching them every time was a show in itself. Simply put, Howlin' Pelle may be the greatest frontperson I've ever seen.

Like Interpol, the Hives were so good live that they even managed to electrify me with their songs I didn't like, i.e. everything they played from their two most recent albums, this year's Lex Hives and 2007's The Black and White Album. I don't even own those albums anymore. It definitely helped that moustachioed guitarist Nicholaus Arson was equally as animated as his brother Howlin' Pelle, miming prodding the audience with the neck of his guitar, whipping pick after pick into the crowd (along with Chris Dangerous' seemingly endless stream of drumsticks) and generally just getting in the audience's faces.

I'm confident that the Hives will never deliver a truly "unique" show; they're far too rock 'n' roll incarnate to do that. They are all of the clichés of rock 'n' roll as performance. But the avant-garde be damned, clichés exist for a reason, and in terms of rock concerts, those clichés persist for a simple reason: they're fucking FUN. Of course the Hives are going to play an encore. Of course they're going to play as many of their major hits as they can. And of course they're going to pander to the crowd endlessly, using every line in the book to beckon insatiably for louder and LOUDER applause, telling the audience they can do better. If you expect any more from the Hives (or any less, for that matter), you probably don't know the Hives.

For a hell of a lot more photos of the Hives at the Commodore Ballroom, click here, here, here aaannnd here.