The Hives
@ Alcatraz, Milano, 5 aprile 2008

THE REVIEW

Loud, flashy, and chaotic, in great shape and with a healthy desire to clock in – and the singer – also to chat (even a bit too much – my god, how much he talked...), last Saturday night the Hives rocked and rolled Alcatraz to the delight of a lot of people who wouldn't have fit in the originally planned Rolling Stone and who instead unleashed themselves in a frenzy that accompanied the black and white Nordics from start to finish. Honest and precise, always sharp, even though to be fair, I didn't notice any over-the-top virtuoso techniques requiring unlikely commitment in their raw punk 'n' roll, they all played great; the frontman showed some difficulty when there wasn't a) screaming b) hyping the crowd up with nonsense, but they managed anyway superbly, slipping out of their nice black suits with white lapels and remaining drenched in sweat in their shirts. Preceded by the heavy and masked Henry Fiat’s something or other that live almost seem to want to do hardcore, the Hives shredded 78 minutes of their best music: noisy, tonic punk rock, ultra-lively but non-violent, I would almost say à la page; they presented almost the entire latest album plus some old classics (e.g., "A Little More for a Little You"), and so the audience kicked, moshed, and sweated with them and left happy. Do I feel musically richer after this concert? No, because in the end, I decided they are a bit too plastic and I don't like them that much, but for twenty euros, what more do you want from life nowadays?