Live Review: The Hives & Dune Rats

It's a night of rock'n'roll fun and frivolity inside the stately surrounds of The Tivoli, kicking off with the three-piece incarnation of local surf punks Dune Rats – with Last Dinosaurs' frontman Sean Caskey on bass – who charm the growing crowd with their bubblegum aesthetic and devil-may-care attitude, best summed up early with a terrible-yet-endearing cover of Violent Femmes' Blister In The Sun. Danny Beusa and BC Michaels are situated miles apart on the big stage but still clearly feed off each other, Beusa claiming that seeing tonight's headliners in this very room back in 2005 inspired him to play music before they jump into recent hook-laden single Fuck It. A stream of similarly brief-but-ebullient nuggets such as On Our Own follow to finish a fun set. Anyone who says that there's no place for lighthearted revelry in rock is deluded.

Soon a team of roadies dressed as black-clad ninjas are scurrying around the stage in front of the backdrop of a leering puppeteer Howling Pelle Almqvist controlling all before him – as seen at Splendour 2011 – indicating that The Hives aren't far away, and sure enough a cinematic recording soon ushers the tuxedo-clad Swedes into place and they burst into the rousing Come On! which opens last year's opus Lex Hives, the repetitive refrain soon succumbing to the more traditional but equally powerful Try It Again. Pelle is forever the consummate showman and directs proceedings with complete panache from the outset, the tight-as-fuck band holding up their end of the deal as they smash through more two more recent tracks, Take Back The Toys and the anthemic 1000 Answers. The crowd ramps up the love in response to familiar older tunes Main Offender and Walk Idiot Walk, before Pelle crowns himself “King Of Brisbane” and rips into the bombastic My Time Is Coming. Everything they deliver is a heady amalgam of power and melody – their cache of catchy songs seems endless – and the fun they bring to proceedings with their demeanour and costumes takes their live show to an untouchable level. The bravado and showmanship wouldn't work without the songs to back it up, and they deliver in spades with incendiary tracks such as No Pun Intended, Wait A Minute, Die All Right! and Hate To Say I Told You So. They finish with Patrolling Days before the inevitable encore finds Pelle on the balcony for Go Right Ahead and amidst the crowd for Insane, the whole thing farewelled with a rousing rendition of Tick Tick Boom. It seems ludicrous to suggest that a band of this stature are underrated, but on tonight's performance it seems that The Hives don't get due recognition for being one of the most entertaining live experiences in rock'n'roll.