The Hives ROCK OUT

On Thursday night I couldn't post because I was busy rocking out at the Hives concert at the Showbox in the Sodo part of downtown.

They are a little band from Sweden that has gained some recent popularity (but they are still not expensive to go see). They put on a good lively show and we especially liked their quirky lead singer (above, in pink) who regularly climbed up the side of the stage and demanded that the audience clap and scream at him, which we did.

The lead singer Pelle Almqvist said some pretty funny stuff in between each of the songs (paraphrased of course, since my memory is horrible):

1. "I really love rock n' roll but don't listen to other rock n' roll bands as much anymore because I have become such a big fan of myself."

2. "You all may be wondering how you got so lucky to be here. Well let me tell you - this s**t's really happening man, I'm really up here and you are really listening to us."

3. "Do you want to dance really fast? Do you want to dance fast and listen to a fast rock n' roll song? Well now you can dance really fast because we're about to play some really fast rock n' roll!"

4. "All of you in the front are clapping and screaming but all the adults in the back need to clap and scream some more! I'm trying to bring all of you together man!"

Also on the 2002 MTV music awards the Hives lead singer Pelle Almqvist ended their set by saying "I know you want us to play more, but that's all the time we have so you can turn off now!"

We had such a good time that we didn't even mind staying out past 9 pm.