The fast-paced Detroit garage rock tradition has long been marked by raucous exchanges with audiences (“Kick out the Jams, motherfuckers!” crowed the MC5), the Hives front man takes the narcissistic side of this genre to its extreme. “Nous sommes le meilleur!” (“We are the best!”) Almqvists declared on more than one occasion, in his affected Inspector Clouseau French. The swagger was sometimes a bit much for me. It’s sometimes difficult to know how much of it is part of the act and how much the singer’s craving adoration. It left me wanting the provocative antics of other spectacular garage punk leaders like Rick Sims of the Didjits, who provoked the audience lovingly to spitting contests with him. In that sense, the Hives were like Rick Sims PG-13. The Hives bring garage closer to pop than to punk.

Also typical of this genre is a fairly repetitive sound (which one can say of many genres such as reggae, punk, and rockabilly, to name a few). Most of their songs themselves seemed unmemorable to me, less about distinctive melodies, arrangements, and words, as about the frenetic guitar-glazed beat. I’m sure fans will tell me I’m just not listening closely enough if I think they all sound too much alike. Yet, there is a noticeable difference between smashes like “Hate to Say I Told You So,” “Tick, Tick, Boom” and the rest. They don’t all share that panache.

Despite the fact their music appeared somewhat repetitive and the banter was sometimes annoyingly megalomaniacal, I was in awe of their full throttle energy for well over an hour.

Both bands were touring fairly new albums, The Hives' just released The Black and White Album, and Gogol Bordello their album released last fall, Super Taranta. But while their recordings are fun, they suffer in comparison to events like tonight. They are spectacular live, which can’t be bottled, even with the most state of the art recording gadgets. Tonight these two bands generated enough energy to power the City of Lights for a whole month. Raw Power? At least Medium Rare. Raw Fun? Definitely.

Article Author: Jayson Harsin

An educator, scholar and critic of music, politics and media, Jayson Harsin was an indie rock and alt. country dj for seven years at WNUR radio in Chicago. He has two blogs (Parisnormale:Indie News from Paris and Pearls Before Swine). …

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