State of The Hives Address

I attended the highly sweaty, impossible-to-get tickets-for and loud as hell show by The Hives last night at The 100 Club and by god it was good fun. I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if it would be much cop as I didn't know if people were still as into the band as they were a couple of years ago but if the gig last night is anything to go by then everything is still very rosy for Sweden's finest purveyors of rock and roll. Howlin' Pelle Almqvist is as fantastic a frontman as ever, whipping the crowd up with promises of a new religion dedicated entirely to him and The Hives, and diatribes about just how damn GOOD the new material is.
They've got a new album out in October and if I heard them correctly (which is always doubtful) some of the new songs they played are called 'Tick Tick Boom' and possibly 'Try Again'. But don't quote me on that.
They played some old favourites as well like 'Die, All Right!' and 'Two-Timing Touch and Broken Bones' which sent the blokes in front of me into a fucking frenzy and then they finished with a triumphant 'Hate To Say I Told You So' and 'Walk Idiot Walk' before guitarist Nicholaus Arson crowdsurfed his way offstage and around the venue for a lap of honour.
Really really enjoyed it. I'm a fan all over again.

Found this online, feel free to download it - The Hives doing 'Back In Black.'

Duracell!

A mate of mine somehow managed to book Duracell for his clubnight in the middle of nowhere last night so I went along to check him out. I'd seen plenty of youtube footage etc but never actually in the flesh; he was just brilliant. If you're not au fait with his work he's a French bloke (very English accent though) who just plays drums but has a series of triggers hooked up to them via his laptop so he can play whole weird electronic tunes from beating out mental arrythmic rhythms. Totally mental. At some points I wondered if he was actually talking to aliens via bizarre noises and bleeps.

For an example of what Duracell's music sounds like, download Ninja Spirit.