The Hives at Irving Plaza

Meet the Hives, a Swedish garage rock band that is larger than life and over the top. On an arena tour opening for Pink, the band gets 45 minutes on stage. On a day off from that tour, the band performed for nearly two hours at Irving Plaza. That not only allowed the band a chance to flesh out more of their song catalogue for its core New York fans, but also gave the flamboyant lead singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist more of an opportunity to let go on stage. This was a great live experience.

And this is a great live band. To say that the band has a theatrical flair is an understatement, as seen at Irving Plaza. Dressed in black and white tuxedos, the musicians worked up a heavy sweat through a high energy performance. The band’s catchy punk-rock sound hasn't much strayed from its roots over the past 20 years; this was simple rock and roll at its best, a sonic boom with gravity. Almqvist's stage persona was very much like a circus ringleader or southern preacher, engaging in amusingly boastful tongue-in-cheek humor and biting wit between songs, yet masterfully stirring the crowd with his singing while the band rocked. Pictured above, Almqvist commanded the standing audience to sit down on the floor; he then surfed halfway into the crowd before commanding the audience to stand up and surf him back to the stage.