music
A succession of hands and flashlights grace tickets as the audience makes its way into the rafters and onto the floor, filling rows of seats that run to within a few yards of the catwalks that jut from the stage placed at one end of the John Paul Jones Arena, an elongated “U” shape. There is little time to find seats; a steady crowd streams down aisles towards the JPJ floor like lemmings to the tunes of Sarah Bareilles, the lilting pianist selected as the evening’s opening act. By 7:43pm—less than 15 minutes after her set began—Bareilles announces that she has one more song, “Gravity,” and rolls softly into another Mariah Carey-lite tune before she exits and the lights rise to a dull yellow, the crowd’s chatter crescendoing with it.
Word among the lower seats is that The Hives will only play for 30 minutes or so, but hopes are high that the Swedish garage rockers will power through at least a dozen songs in their all-too-short opening slot, and hopes grow as the lights dim once more, save for the glowing, red script that spells their name across the black backdrop of the stage.
And out they march: First, the drummer in a black, short-sleeved lounge shirt, takes up his sticks, gives one a twirl and sets to work on a crisp four-four beat. Then, the chubby rhythm section, bassist Dr. Matt Destruction and guitarist Vigilante Carlstroem, who resembles a mustachioed Chris Farley, and sweats and hammers his guitar strings as if trying to dislodge a chicken bone from his throat. Then, the charismatic brothers, the Groucho and Harpo of the Hives, guitarist Nicholaus Arson and Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist.
“Can we get some applause, please?” Howlin’ Pelle curtly demands after the band’s first number. “I know most of you don’t have our records—I’ve seen the sales figures,” he jokes. “But I know you’ll want to when we’re done. Am I not right?”
The outsized characters of The Hives (and the outsized ego of Almqvist) make them a great fit for an arena concert and, though the majority of the crowd—a range of ages, from elementary school students to 50-ish parents, with pockets of UVA students thrown around—are here for headliners Maroon 5, The Hives sweat it out, ripping through damned near 10 songs in their set, a handful of new tunes from their upcoming The Black and White Album, backtracking to Tyrannosaurus Hives for the jitters-to-jolts rhythms of “A Little More for Little You” and the last snotty line of “Hate to Say I Told You So,” Pelle screaming that he’ll spell his name aloud, because he wants to.
The crowd begins the set in their seats; at least 100 listeners flood the front of the stage for the last half of the set, screaming and flailing their limbs as Pelle and Arson take turns provoking their audience. Arson waggles his fingers and cocks his eyebrows to the back of his head; Pelle high-kicks his way across the stage, rooster-strutting and doing his best James Brown impressions over the atomic clock precision of his rhythm section. Nobody breaks character and, closing with “Tick Tick Boom,” The Hives leave with more fans than they began with, and a few more record sales that they surely feel they deserved.
Two enormous screens encourage fans to use their cellular phones and PDAs to send text messages to the JPJ crowd during the set change. Marriage proposals and UVA dormitory shouting matches take place on the two giant screens (nobody but me seems to want a “No more blood for oil! I love Adam Levine!” message). Then, with one last message (which reads “Who wants to marry the Hives guy?”), the lights go out and the curtains part, revealing a letter “M” that stands at least 30′ tall.
 Paint the town red: Maroon 5 bring out all the bells and whistles (not to mention a gigantic "M") for a set of hits at the John Paul Jones Arena. |
Vertical neon bars shoot lights sideways across the stage as Maroon 5 filters on, led by Details-ready singer Adam Levine in a grey t-shirt and vest, and a fade that would make Vanilla Ice proud. His long-haired rhythm section (who resemble the Allman Brothers) plug in and Levine announces as fans pour forth through the aisles to his feet, “So, here we are. Are you ready?”
A few Top 40 hits can make anyone forget a musician’s chops (take John Mayer, for instance), so Levine is quick to set the standard for the night’s gig by ripping through a Prince-ish guitar solo at the end of his opening number. M5’s break-out hit, “Harder to Breathe,” gets a rocky, staggered drum-and-bass intro, and “The Sun” pairs a breezy, Caribbean bass line to Levine’s vocal range, now reaching admirably into George Michaels territory. Levine’s pipes are less a centerpiece, however, and he mixes his instrument (and a few more choice "Purple Rain" guitar licks) with those of his comrades well.
While not channeling the faux-arrogance of The Hives, Maroon 5 are comparable showmen (thanks mainly to their leader, Levine). After the welcome tempo acceleration of “Can’t Stop,” the quintet cuts the tempo in half for “Secret,” which Levine concludes with perennial schmaltz favorite “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins. Then, it’s the ripping “Shiver,” still the best pairing of Maroon’s Michael Jackson vocals and Poison guitar work, wrapped up by Levine and guitarist James Valentine with strains of “Icky Thump” by the White Stripes.
Hundreds of cell phones appear during “Won’t Go Home Without You,” an extended, synth-driven take on the Police, and I watch one small boy, no more than 10 years old, borrow his mother’s BlackBerry to hold it up before returning it to her. I turn my attention to a woman in the blue dress in front of me, her hands on the bars around the stage as if caged, raking her body from side to side, no less than 45 years old. I crack my cell phone open and aim it at the hundreds of floating lights behind me, snap a picture, check the result—thousands of faces invisible, their appreciation flickering, committed, over their heads.