The Hives play it like they mean it (even though they don’t)

MUSIC
The Hives
Enmore Theatre, July 23
Reviewed by JAMES JENNINGS
★★★★

There are bands that play their songs live, and there are bands that put on a show. Sweden’s the Hives belong firmly in the second category. They are a group that lean hard into the theatricality and absurdity – but most importantly, the fun – of playing loud songs in a rock’n’roll band.

From the country-and-western-style matching black-and-white suits to their stage names – vocalist Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist, lead guitarist Nicholaus Arson, rhythm guitarist Vigilante Carlstroem, bassist The Johan and Only and drummer Chris Dangerous – it’s clear the Hives don’t take themselves terribly seriously (see also: two stagehands dressed as ninjas, one who plays the tambourine throughout).

The Hives don’t just play – they put on a show. Credit: Richard Clifford

What they do take seriously is whipping the crowd into a frenzied pack of devout rock’n’roll worshippers, all achieved via a killer live show and a livewire frontman.

Addressing the audience like a feverish preacher from middle America is Almqvist, who wastes no time in showing off his mastery of the genre’s tropes – spinning microphones, high kicks and shouting the kind of hyperbolic boasts that would make the Gallagher brothers blush (“Doesn’t it feel good to be in the presence of the Hives?”).

Clearly, the Hives don’t take themselves terribly seriously. Credit: Rick Clifford

None of it would work without the songs to back up the bold presentation, but the Hives have more than enough belters from across their near-three-decade career to warrant the chest beating. Main Offender and Hate to Say I Told You So, the singles that put the Hives on the map in the early Noughties, sound just as electric 25 years on, the latter a highlight when a young fan is invited on stage to play bass, and nails it.

A return to the stage for an encore is introduced with more self-referential humour (“Surprise! Who knew? Us!” says a wild-eyed Almqvist), with the final song, Tick Tick Boom, the perfect encapsulation of what makes the Hives great: endlessly listenable primal rock tunes designed for the simple purpose of getting hips to shake (“It’s not rocket surgery,” Almqvist observes).

“Do you wanna hear some rock’n’roll?” Almqvist asks earlier in the show. “We are well equipped, and we’re f---ing good at it.”

It’s no idle boast, and saying it has felt good to be in the presence of the Hives is an understatement. As the band walk off to Carly Simon’s Nobody Does It Better, it’s hard to disagree.

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THEATRE
Emerald City
Ensemble Theatre, July 23
Until August 23
Reviewed by CASSIE TONGUE
★★★

At the opening of the Ensemble Theatre’s new production of David Williamson’s classic play Emerald City, vibrant Ken Done illustrations of a sparkling Sydney Harbour appear in a filmstrip frame on the back wall of Dan Potra’s set. It’s art as time machine: we’re heading back to 1987.

We meet Colin (Tom O’Sullivan), a screenwriter who moves from Melbourne to Sydney at the urging of his producer (Danielle Carter) to step up his career. His wife, Kate (Rachel Gordon), is reluctant to make the move; she’s convinced Sydney is all style and no substance.

Aisha Aidara as Helen. Credit: Phil Erbacher

But Sydney will win you over. Charmed by the water, the jacarandas and the flame trees, and flattered by climbers at cocktail parties, Colin finds himself compromising his values of making meaningful Australian stories to play at constructing commercial successes for the American market with no local accents in sight.

Mike McCord (Matt Minto) is the “harlot” who seduces Colin over to this dark side, a network-building soap opera script editor with a hunger for fame. What will happen to Colin’s integrity? Will Kate also resist the siren call of status and success in her publishing world? Will their marriage weather their warring minds and careers? And will Colin, in his hunger for more, ignore his attraction to Mike’s partner, Helen (Aisha Aidara)?

Williamson’s play has plenty to say about Sydney that’s still relevant today, making plenty of on-point jokes about the city’s glittery image-consciousness, private-school social networks and obsession with climbing the property ladder.

Tom O’Sullivan as screenwriter Colin. Credit: Phil Erbacher

But it’s a social satire that’s also deeply concerned with how little – culturally and institutionally – we value Australian stories. This is still a going concern: more than 30 years from this play’s inception, Screen Australia’s latest drama report shows already conservative spending on local film and TV has fallen by almost 30 per cent.

Sharing our stories helps us build a better sense of who we are and who we can be, and this play is horrified – on paper and on stage – that we still cede so much screen time to Hollywood. Director Mark Kilmurry has taken that message to heart, and has Colin deliver the play’s most sincere lines about Australian storytelling direct to the audience.

These pleas come at a sacrifice: the production’s heart is in the right place, Potra’s costumes enjoyably period, but the play’s humour wilts in the presence of such blunted and didactic scene-building.

The play feels creaky, too. The actors are clearly still developing their performances, with stumbled lines and wooden choices that feel more rote than felt. There are also some decades-old playwriting sensibilities, like the play’s direct and establishing first scene, and old ideas about gender and relationships, that feel less effective now. And Williamson’s characters, in their winking asides to the audience, don’t feel as fun as they could – though Carter and Minto have some pleasing sparkiness to their Sydneysider personalities.

For a play about a vibrant city bursting with stories, this one feels relatively staid. Let’s hope it loosens up over the course of its run.

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