📍Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater — September 8
Written by Krysta Ayers / Photos by Drew Doggett

When Chad Michael Murray asked Lindsay Lohan, “You like The Hives?” in 2003’s Freaky Friday, I was a middle schooler who was instantly validated: Oh, I do have “good” music taste. Fast forward 22 years, and The Hives have kicked off their first show of the North American leg of their The Hives Forever Forever the The Hives tour, right here in Austin.

Clad in matching black suits with white trimming and scarves in lieu of ties, the five-member band was the epitome of showmanship on stage—decorated with oversized balls (contain your laughter) that bore their name. With humor, and with the energy they must have kept on reserve since first forming in ‘93, The Hives gave Austin everything in an epic performance.

“The Hives play fast,” lead singer Pelle Almqvist said, “and if you come to a one-and-a-half-hour show, it’s actually 7 hours.” The band did indeed play quickly—but not rushed—through their never-ending discography of songs: in just over three decades, they have released seven studio albums plus one live album (Live at Third Man Records). And they are back as if they never left.

Pelle told the crowd, before launching into “Walk Idiot Walk,” that the song was played live for the first time at Stubb’s in 2004. A full-circle moment. It’s punchy and loud and quintessential to the sound the Swedish band has mastered; garage rock that is noisily unapologetic in both lyrics and rhythm.

The band members’ alter egos were on full display. Vigilate Carlstroem, on rhythm guitar, and Chris Dangerous, on drums, matched the bouncy, sweaty energy of Howlin’ Pelle at every beat. Pelle told the crowd he loves being a Hives fan and that he’s counted “2.5 million” of us in the audience, the beginning of the hyperbolic language he would sprinkle throughout the show.

They played “Rigor Mortis Radio,” “Main Offender,” and “Bogus Operandi,” and zippered the familiar tunes between new songs from the tour’s eponymous album (released Aug. 29 of this year): “Enough is Enough,” “Born a Rebel,” and “O.C.D.O.D.” The latter is a peak mosh pit tune that no one took advantage of.

The band slowed things down for a dramatic instrumental intermission of sorts. “As a Hives fan, I live for these moments: feeling anticipation for no reason,” Pelle quipped. In the background, Chris Dangerous kick-drummed a steady beat, and we waited for a crescendo or a segue into a song we could sing along to.

It came in the form of “Hate to Say I Told You So.” Nicholaus Arson, lead guitarist, played with rabid finesse, and bassist The Johan and Only was punchy and dynamic in his delivery for the backbone of the song.

“Countdown to Shutdown” provoked the kind of frenetic buzz best likened to underground clubs with sticky floors and laconic bartenders.

The audience, presumably fans since at least the early aughts (as far as I could reasonably deduce with my own eyes), danced for as long as their knees would allow, clapped along, and parted like the Red Sea when Pelle jumped down to join the crowd.

The three-song encore ended with a victorious, arm-pumping goodbye. The band played “The Hives Forever Forever The Hives,” and invoked a call and response with the crowd like a last conversation.

The only upset was that the Monday “school night” meant the neighborhood noise ordinance was an absolute buzzkill to the rock party that could have gone on all night.