How is it that a group that sounds like the Hives are selling out the Apollo? In a world configured according to expectation, the highlight of their year would be an appearance at the Rebellion punk festival in Blackpool, probably high up the bill on the second stage. They’d headline their own shows at places like the Dome in Tufnell Park to an audience made up of three-quarters old blokes and a quarter skinny young kids, suited and booted like it’s 1966 and Antonioni’s about to shout ‘Action!’. Afterwards, a DJ would play the Sonics and the Electric Prunes and the Chocolate Watchband.
Garage punk tends to be of niche interest, despite it plainly being the apogee of human achievement
The Hives are a garage punk band, who owe a debt to the forgotten 1960s singles compiled on albums named after rock forms: Nuggets, Boulders, Pebbles, Rubble. Garage punk tends to be of niche interest, despite the music plainly being the apogee of human achievement, a primitive splurge of inchoate fear and excitement and rage and joy.
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