Monday, October 15, 2007
Posted at
10:17
by
Will Spitz
New suits, new ’staches, new songs — same old vaudevillian showmanship,
same old mathematically precise eardrum molestation. At a sweaty, stinky,
crushd-tin-box (sorry, we still have Radiohead on the brain) Middle East
downstairs last night the Hives lived up to Howlin’ Pelle’s ridiculous
tongue-in-cheek third-person boasts — as they always do, even if the shtick
starts to wear thin somewhere around two-thirds of the way in. They managed to
race through 18 songs — old and new — and almost as many Hives-are-law rants in
just over an hour. Highlights: a crushing rendition of “No Pun Intended,” one
of the best songs on the beyond-underrated Tyrannosaurus
Hives; the one-two punch of two ten-year-old songs, “Here We Go Again” and
“A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T,” both of which totally hold up; bassist Dr. Matt
Destruction’s facial expressions. Lowlight (yeah, just one, really): opening
and closing with songs from the new album, which, upon a scant two listens,
isn’t immediately turning our crank like Veni
Vidi Vicious and T. Hives did. Random
thought: Is Chris Dangerous the best punk rock drummer ever? Oh, and someone
over at LemmingTrail just posted the audio.
Setlist and photos here.
