LIVE REVIEW + PHOTOS: The Hives – Camp And Furnace, Liverpool – 30/08/2025

Here’s the thing about The Hives’ new album—it doesn’t have to be anything all that special. They already earned their stripes in the 2000s’ garage-rock revival with a killer live show, basically setting them up in perpetuity. As has become the standard for that era, the envelope doesn’t need to be pushed. So while The Hives Forever Forever The Hives is a fun new entry in their canon, that’s about all it is. As long as there’s a handful of new cuts to zhuzh up the setlist and keep their famed onstage energy rolling over, that’s all that matters.

This, then, can be seen as a bit of a dry run for their big, proper UK tour in November. It’s a series of relatively intimate album release shows, the first chance to test the new material only days after the album’s release. And for a fanbase as famously dedicated as The Hives’ is, they seem to have jumped at the opportunity. To put it into perspective, a sold-out Camp & Furnace has less than half the capacity of even the smallest venue on their winter run. Sure, what emerges from that is a very truncated set—nine songs in 40 minutes, with four of them only unleashed into the wild in the last few months—but again, the spectacle is what you’re here for. A concentrated burst of The Hives will still deliver wonders on its own.

And, of course, they deliver. It’s almost like they expressly want to more than anything else, being aware of tightened circumstances and looking to set off as many Hives-shaped fireworks as they can. So, before the first song Enough Is Enough has even begun, Pelle Almqvist is working up the crowd as eagerly as he can; when it does kick off, he’s swinging the mic, kicking the air and taking to the barrier like he’s not approaching 50 years old. There are frontmen half his age who wouldn’t be pulling off stunts like this, and he clearly knows it so why not flaunt some inflated rockstar ego while he’s at it? “Look at me! Appreciate me!” he declares from atop the bar. “Take photos of me in my beautiful suit!”

It’s the same suit that all five Hives come clad in, the standard accoutrements that have become part of the brand. It probably wouldn’t feel the same without the suits, to be honest; just another jeans-and-t-shirt ensemble would ring as significantly less impressive. Again, it’s a testament to how utterly crucial effort is in the eyes of The Hives. Over three decades in, they’ve could’ve wound down into a more standard outfit, but commitment to the bit held to this much of a premium goes such a long way. Even with Almqvist is the obvious centrepiece, there’s a sweltering effort coming from the others. Nicholaus Arson’s convulsions as he rips out the riffs of Paint A Picture; the great bass growl from The Johan And Only on Countdown To Shutdown; the fact they’re all in this sweatbox, giving it both barrels, while dressed in tuxedos! Remember, this is, as Almqvist puts it, “half a show”, which could make it much easier to get away with slacking a little more.

This, though, remains as taut and wiry as you’d expect. It’s the usual setting of The Hives at play, even with the new material that fits with total seamlessness. In terms of what’s aired, the only classics are Hate To Say I Told You So and Tick Tick Boom in quick succession; everything else is from their most recent albums. And yet, you’d be hard-pressed to spot any discrepancies or rust that might’ve built up since then. The simplicity of The Hives’ work is, has been and probably always will be what they do best, as the perfect baseline for a live show that does all the heavy lifting. With the way they deliver a final bow at the end, you’d think this was the arena tour, not its low-key prelude. But it’s more a showing of the value placed on the medium of live performance that’s defined The Hives for ages. A new album on its own mightn’t be anything to jump up over, but the promise of a terrific live show to follow, size or scale be damned? Almqvist himself puts it best: “Nobody can do it like The Hives.”

Words by Luke Nuttall

Photos by Maryleen (Instagram / Website)