THIER DIABOLIC SCHEME: THE HIVES @ TERMINAL 5

So Sarah couldn't make it to the Hives concert she had to review for this new music blog Almack's Dance Hall , so she asked me if I could fill in for her. Of course I said yes! Go check out the site for more great gig reviews!

As I made my way through the soggy mess of rain to meet my friend and gig-mate Paul Adams I wondered if I had somehow wandered through some kind of time-space continuum and was transported back to 2002 when I was a mere middle schooler and The Hives and opening act The Donnas were one of the many hyped "The" bands of the beginning of the millennium. However as I made my way into the balcony area (having already missed The Donnas and with 5 minute to spare until The Hives took the stage) I saw a sea of excited audience member of all ages. Mostly teens and twenty-somethings, but there were quite a few giddy moms and dads in the audience as well.

On a side note, I also realized that I probably hated Terminal 5 more than any other venue I can possibly imagine. This redheaded stepchild of the Bowery Presents venues is just awful in every respect. The sound up in the balcony blows and there is basically only room for like 20 people to see while the rest of us poor sods either stand on our tip-toes and crane our necks or feel like total tools staring at the little flat screen TVs. And when I had FINALLY strategically positioned myself between these two mens' shoulders, some chick looking like she owned the place comes right in front of me and starts talking to them! The men I mean, not the shoulders. I gave her my meanest ice queen "oh no you di-int" look, but to no avail. She looked back at me a couple times but never moved. I later found out that this girl was the lead singer of The Donnas. I don't regret giving her bad looks.

ANYWAYS. Ok, so now I've moved positions to where I have a decent view of the stage and can actually start listening properly to the songs. Its the end of the second song, "Try It Again" and with that Howlin' Pelle Almqvist begins his antics with the audience. Simultaneously acting like your older sister's cool boyfriend who you are secretly in love with and a slightly insane ringleader of a monochrome circus, he toys with the audiences emotions until he has them totally mesmerized. One minute he strokes their ego telling them, in his ever so adorably lilting Swedish accent how much he "loooooves playing in New York City" and the next he is yelling at them "Shut up, shut up! No request". Regardless of the words spouting from his god-like visage, the audience hungrily takes in every word. By the opening chords of the third song, "Main Offender", the crowd would clearly jump off a cliff if Pelle told them to.

At or around this point I somehow was handed a backstage pass by Rachel, the assistant to the Hives booking agent and the person who got us on the guest list, and was led to this other balcony area which was much more spacious located right above the stage . This was a perfect vantage point because I could see the bands interaction with each other and the reaction of the crowd at the same time. The look on people's faces, especially near the front, were just rapturous. By the time The Hives broke out hit "Tick Tick Boom" the audience was just heaving towards the stage. Kids were crowd surfing like maniacs, and the security was constantly pulling kids over the barriers. Pelle and Cruel-Intentions-era Ryan Phillipe lookalike guitarist Nicholaus Arson couldn't help but join in the fun as well, entering the crowd several times and getting touched in every place possible, as though fans hoped a little Hives charisma would rub off on them. During "Diabolic Scheme" I started to wonder for a moment if The Hives had some kind of ulterior motive for world domination or something. I settled on the fact that it was probably just crowd domination when Pelle crowed out "From greatness to greatness is where I span, you have me for a moment, grab on while you can". And grab on they did.

After the last note rang out after the encore that included super-hit "Hate to Say I Told You So" and ended with "Return the Favour", I was a converted fan. The showmanship of the whole band but especially Pelle was just impeccable. They could not have said or done anything better. If the venue hadn't been so horrendous and if I had been down in the pit instead of up in the balcony I probably would have considered it one of my top gigs ever.

We (Rachel, Paul, and I) decided it would be faster if we just left through the back, which included the dressing room area. As we were trying to find a way out, we found Mr. Arson peeling off his sweaty garments and refusing to accept our praise of his especially energetic performance saying he "thought the gig was going to be terrible at first, but then it turned out pretty good". We couldn't tell from where we were standing. Then we continued down the corridor where we saw Pelle talking to someone about something he did to his leg onstage. And let me tell you ladies, up close that boy is rather dashing. After walking outside for about two seconds and deciding that the cab situation would take awhile to die down, we returned to the dressing room area, where there was a shirtless Pelle (ooer) and shirtless guitarist Vigilante Carlstroem (not so much ooer....). We waited around for awhile, until we thought it was safe to run out into the rain. When we finally collapsed into our hard earned cab, Rachel sighed and said, "You know, these are the nights when I realize my job really doesn't suck at all". Smiling to myself, I thought I couldn't agree more.

Here are some pics. Sorry my camera is total crap. I stole it from my little sister while I was at home for Christmas.