May 27, 2002 The Roxy, Hollywood: Show Review By Paul Leeds
While expecting a total music industry schmooze fest, the industry types were surprisingly few and far between. These days there are lots of hepcats working the labels but still the Man is always there, showing up with a tucked-in Oxford shirt and talking into a cellphone and arguing with the door people over drink tickets. The Man was here but smartly kept himself mostly hidden. The show was way oversold and packed in like sardines were an army of 15 year olds. God bless them because they're short and I can see over their heads. They wanted to jump up and down and clap their hands and sing along. They haven't been turned into jaded Los Angeles music snobs just yet.
Opening act Reigning Sound come from Tennessee. While they didn't quite look the part of indie rockers, they more than made up for their image with their blistering set. Not to be critical of their look, but one guy had a beard. Not a mystic beard like Doug Martsch wears that says he's too cosmic to deal with a razor, and not the I've-been-partying-with-groupies-for-a-week-now beard sported by Rivers Cuomo. This beard was trimmed and neat, like a 70s man beard. And he wore a black vest over a white shirt, circa 1987. Whatever. It makes it all the more rewarding when a band can show up without an image and proceed to knock the audience out of their socks. I hadn't heard these guys before but their singer/guitarist is a reincarnation of Andy Partridge (from XTC) and Frank Black. He looks like a relative of Parry from Nerf Herder, so we'll have to find out if Parry's dad ever hung out in the South. The band were obviously a little nervous at first, being the first of three bands on a night when the crowd is likely to throw bottles and yell for them to get off the stage. Reigning Sound won the crowd over with their first song. One amazing period was their cover of the jazz standard "Stormy Monday" done as a punk rave up. Great band, wish I had brought enough money to score one of their cds, but I'm sure Amoeba will have it.
Next up, New York City's The Mooney Suzuki. Don't know what the name means but have a suspicion that it doesn't mean anything. That's part of the art statement. TMS dress all in black and rock the 60s garage punk side of the road. Immediately their look and sound remind one of The Music Machine, albeit cranked up fast and loud. At one point during the set, the singer asked, "What would Sean Bonniwell say if he knew that two bands, dressed all in black, were playing the Sunset strip, right now playing garage punk?" That makes you dig them more: that they acknowledge their sources (Bonniwell being the motive force behind The Music Machine). The TMS stage show is all about bringing the show to the crowd. The fourth wall was busted at all times during the night with the guitarist and singer lunging into the crowd. At one point they both leaped over the barricade and the guitarist got on the singer's shoulders --- and still played as they looked around for someone to chicken fight. The whole band is on the same wavelength. Their drummer (sorry no names, there's no band info on the "Electric Sweat" record I have) stands on his floor tom and stool while pounding the hell out of his kit. They take the stage and never let up. It's like what Supersuckers do, it's a full Rock Show: they point at the audience, get the crowd to participate. It's amazing good fun. TMS managed to get the crowd clapping during song parts and cheering along although not many people were singing the lyrics, which means they didn't know the band but were enthralled anyway. The frontman kept the rock show going with in between song banter like a garage rockin' Jon Spencer. The TMS set was tight and energetic, the focus was on the big prize of converting fans, and I'm sure they won a roomful of new fans.
Headliners The Hives took their sweet time getting on stage. They made the crowd wait an entire hour. This must have been pre-meditated, trying to get the crowd to settle down after The Mooney Suzuki's onslaught. When The Hives came out, it was a done deal. This crowd was ready to be putty in the hands of these five young men from Sweden. The crowd went nuts instantly and a jumping writhing monster was born. For the most part the action in front was jumping and dancing, not marred by bonehead jock maneouvres or tough guys in the pit -- until later. A steel sign with large white bulbs hung behind the band and elicited a cheer when flicked on: The Hives. While TMS were four guys in unison bringing the fist to the teeth of the crowd, The Hives are pretty much reduced to two guys rocking it and three guys kicking it. Pelle the singer and Chris the guitarist move and rock and shout like Swedish rocking fools, but the other guys have their feet nailed down. Chris plays and looks like Andy Gill from Gang Of Four. After each song, the band was rewarded with huge cheers. For a group of guys from Sweden this must be a dreamlike experience. They've traveled 10,000 miles and are adored in the land of rock and roll. The Hives are smart enough to not overdo it. Pelle plays off his role as frontman with charm: their shtick is "fuck you, we don't need you, you need us," but Pelle can't help laughing when he says it. Later on, it was all thank you's and graciousness. They know how lucky they are to be so well-received here. Part of their appeal is that they aren't begging to be loved, like so many bands, but that doesn't meant they don't secretly desire it. The days of the Vikings are long gone and modern Swedes are polite and conscientious to a fault, so it must be incredibly hard for them to even pose as indifferent rock villains. When Pelle spoke of the deplorable state radio is in, the crowd shouted their agreement. Basically the crowd was begging The Hives to go on and get big enough to force the record companies and radio stations to change their format. Pelle even sent a message to the label jokers in the crowd to find better bands to sign. Standout moments were "Main Offender", "Knock Knock" and "Supply And Demand." The set was kept short, to keep the audience wanting more. But an encore was demanded and The Hives happily obliged.
All of this for only $10, an impossibly sweet deal. Rarely do all three bands on a bill deliver the goods, and almost never do they exceed your expectations. Tonight's big winner, though, was The Mooney Suzuki, whose set easily blasted The Hives out of the water.
by Ben Wener from The Orange County Register
It was over as fast as it began. At 11:15 p.m. Monday night, a half-hour after they had entered with campy bravado to "Declare Guerre Nucleaire" on the sweat-drenched Roxy, the Hives - the new saviors of garage-rock and the hottest thing to emerge from Sweden since ABBA - well, they were calling it a night.
"All good things must come to an end," said singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, pausing from his routine of spot-on Jagger struts and poses. He named the next song: "Supply and Demand," about shunning company dough. "It's everything you need in three minutes. Thank you, (expletive) you and goodbye."
He leapt into a high-flying kick straight out of David Lee Roth. Chris Dangerous, the surest rudimentary thumper this side of Ringo, whipped up a pounding beat. And then came that sound.
That intensely explosive sound, like a firework going off in your hands, overwhelmingly brutal for a moment, then sizzling in your hands and ringing in your ears.
Short and neat - that's how guitarist Nicholaus Arson described what went down after the band ripped through a fitting smash-up that could have served as the evening's title, "A Get Together to Tear It Apart." That tidy description isn't inaccurate, but it barely skims the surface of what the Hives are about.
Beyond their cocky pretension - at one point Almqvist announced that he is "the foremost singer in rock 'n' roll" - there swells a genuine, passionate love for raw rock that stretches across decades, from the amphetamine-fueled early Beatles to the ragged blues of the Rolling Stones to the violence of the MC5 to the upset-everything attitude of the Sex Pistols to the revved- up tunefulness of the Buzzcocks or Elvis Costello.
For this
And after years of soggy, boring, test-marketed metal, this comes across like a knife through the heart. "We listened to American radio once," Almqvist told the already converted crowd, so packed a fire marshal would have hemorrhaged with worry. "That's just wrong."
Indeed, they'd love nothing more than to take over our airwaves, though they would see that as a helping hand: "We don't need you," Almqvist said, "but you need us."
Still, at this point it's difficult to say whether the success of "Hate to Say I Told You So" at KROQ is a fluke or a hint of greater things to come - for music, that is, not the Hives. Likewise, Monday night it was hard to gauge whether the audience comprised more ahead-of-the- curve hipsters or blown-away newbies.
Regardless of what comes, the Hives no doubt will be remembered. Within a return to basics that encompasses everything from the Strokes' Velvets redux to the White Stripes' fuzzy neo-Americana - and notice that each has uniforms, these Swedes preferring a cross between Mafia garb and finery the Kinks used to wear - the Hives are the pure core. No frills, save for a backdrop like Kiss in miniature. Just infectious blasts of unfettered enthusiasm, the same energetic release that set this movement in motion a half-century ago.
"History starts tonight," Almqvist said, explaining that the band has come to "change everything." With Korn and Eminem still commanding attention, somehow that seems highly unlikely. But for those devoted to keeping the bruising spirit of rock alive, this captivating gig was like tumbling into its next chapter.
It's not yet June - and the White Stripes' greatly anticipated spate of shows is this weekend - but something tells me I won't see anything this amazing all year.
by Ethlie Ann Vare from Hollywood Reporter
Sweden's latest import is being rolled out with all the fanfare of a new Volvo sportster. An afternoon in-store and live performance at the Virgin Megastore; limos-ful of executives at the Roxy; a multimillion-dollar cooperative deal to release the debut U.S. album -- not to mention the band's own self-aggrandizement. But do these 23-year-olds have the goods to match the hype?
The Hives -- proud punksters from the cow town of Fagersta -- are being lumped in with the power pop of the Strokes and the White Stripes. Their material is much closer to the Dead Kennedys or the Ramones -- or, more specifically, a bunch of Kinks riffs run through a meat grinder. Their songs are proudly three minutes or less and their sets famously under an hour, which is fine, because they've said all they have to say long before that.
Dressed in trademark matching black outfits with white shoes and ties, the Hives played about 45 minutes at the packed Roxy -- seemingly all of their new "Veni, Vidi, Vicious" album and half of the previous "Barely Legal." Lead singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, he of the dead-on Mick Jagger impression, greeted the crowd with "Yes, America, you love us!" and bid them adieu with "Thank you, fuck you and goodbye." Attitude they've got. Chops ... well, that's another story.
"Hate to Say I Told You So" is pretty irresistible, and "Die, All Right" has a sneaky appeal. Most of the other tunes are impossible to differentiate. The stage show is wonderfully energetic, and the crowd was wildly enthusiastic, but at times the whole thing resembled a long "Saturday Night Live" sketch.
Are the Hives all gimmick and no guts, or are they the Great Punk Hope? Does it matter? As Britain's venerable NME put it, it's either this or Coldplay.
by Nathan Ihara for LA Weekly
"I've got a bone to pick with Europe," the Mooney Suzuki's singer Sammy James Jr. told the Roxy audience. "Europeans say the USA forgot how to rock!" Then, in an excellent imitation of the feeble U.S. soccer team, the New York band proceeded with a surprisingly tame show, their attitude stumbling just like James Jr. did when he slipped off the drum stool near the end of the set. Point for the Europeans.
But have no fear, punk rock ain't dead. When the purple-lit curtain rose again, the frothing crowd got to experience the immaculate perfection of the Swedish hardcore quintet the Hives. In their second American visit (invasion?), the band have arrived with their sex pistols blazing. Like their Swedish brethren and Burning Heart labelmates the (International) Noise Conspiracy, the Hives have black belts in the sweaty science of rock & roll live shows. From their matching silken white ties and airborne guitar chords to the band's Hollywood F/Xworthy freeze midsong, every move these guys make is as calibrated as a boy-band dance step.
Howlin' Pelle Almqvist dominated the room with a dandified dangerousness and disdain reminiscent of Malcolm McDowell's sociopathic antihero in A Clockwork Orange. Almqvist swaggered and preened, howled and screamed, smirked, kicked and struck poses, blatantly reveling in the audience idolatry. The more Almqvist dished out the abuse, the more the crowd -- a refreshingly motley crew of punks, scenesters and awestruck teenagers -- adored him. "You see, America, the thing is: We don't need you, but you need us!" His surly hooligan backups played the part of the goonish droogs to the hilt, glaring and openly laughing at the feverish throng.
With a '50s rock & roll charm, a '60s garage-rock ability to kick out the jams, and the snarling id of '70s punk, the Hives were teenagers when they burst out of their tiny industrial hometown of Fagersta, Sweden, to electrify Europe in the late '90s. Radio play of "Hate To Say I Told You So" on KROQ and across the country (has real rock & roll truly returned to the masses?!) indicates the Hives are finally breaking out in the U.S. of A. As Almqvist announced at the Roxy Monday, "People call me smug, but the Hives deserve everything they get!" No argument here.
