The Hives, St Luke's, Glasgow: 'always ready to rock'
This intimate Hives show was a righteous riot of fun and basic messaging, writes Fiona Shepherd
The Hives, St Luke's, Glasgow ★★★★
Sweden’s primo punk rockers The Hives have never been short on confidence but someone somewhere seriously over-estimated their ability to fill the Hydro and thus their headline Glasgow show had to be downsized drastically to the Academy. Are they downhearted? Seemingly not, as they also fitted in this intimate warm-up gig in St Luke’s, a venue so bijou it could barely contain this big, brash garage band and their large balloon decoration emblazoned with H (expect four more at the Academy show).
Also, forget the warm-up part - The Hives are always ready to rock. Quoth lead singer and chief ringmaster “Howlin’” Pelle Almqvist of their reduced circumstances: “this show is so small and legendary, people are already talking about it and it's only begun.” Almqvist has enough front to power a whole performance, but his compadres plugged into the showman energy via the illuminated piping on their matching cowboy shirts to deliver big time in a small space.
A Hives set typically encompasses the several moods of rock, punk and garage, with barely a post-70s reference. On this occasion they stampeded from the pugnacious Enough Is Enough to the strutting Walk Idiot Walk to the cheerleader beat of Rigor Mortis Radio to the Ramonesy Paint a Picture, which fake-ended with Pelle in the pulpit. Their biggest hits Main Offender and Hate to Say I Told You So predictably caused a rumpus, but the turbo-charged Bogus Operandi and ferocious O.C.D.O.D easily held the line.
This was a righteous riot of fun and basic messaging from Come On! (if you say so Pelle) to the, yes, explosive Tick Tick Boom. Amqvist’s band introductions deserved a star on their own before the band were beckoned back with a bespoke chant of “here we f***in’ Hives” - perhaps one to add to to their own catalogue of shameless rock slogans.
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