The Hives – Paradiso, Amsterdam 25/09/2023

Swedish Rockers storm Amsterdam.

If someone was to make a list of the greatest live bands they had ever seen, then I feel there would be a fair few who would place The Hives if not at the top of the list, well they would be pretty bloody close. I was really lucky to have got to see them so early in their career in the 1990’s having been given a copy of their debut EP while on tour in Sweden and was hooked from that very moment. I would see them at every opportunity, and when at the turn of a brand new century and the release of the “Vendi Vidi Vicious”…well The Hives became huge and this was mainly down to their live reputation.

It had been 11 years since The Hives had released an album, but they have come back with a bang, releasing The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons which has seen them back to their glorious best. Tonight Amsterdam is rocking to tracks from the aforementioned album, like Modus Operandi, Stick Up and Countdown To Shutdown. Singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist struts the stage and seems to be a glorious mix of Jagger, Bowie and well, Mohammed Ali. He is utterly insistent that the crowd greet every single song like a long lost friend, while his guitar wielding brother Nicholas Arson covers every inch of the stage, never once failing to look the audience in the eye, daring them to even try to stop shaking their asses to some quality Scandinavian rock and roll.

Of course some of the older material brings rapturous moshing like Main Offender, Idiot Walk and Hate To Say I Told You So but it is the way the newer material fits so well alongside older material that really will see The Hives rise to the top of the rock table again. If we hadn’t been gifted an encore ,  I fear that these sweat drenched Dutch rockers may have caused a riot but the band duly oblige with Come On and Tick Tick Boom! And it is over …..but tell me any other band that while giving the audience a final bow will then invite on stage their road crew who are dressed as ninjas to bask in the glory….no, no other band is quite like The Hives!