Unlike opening act, The D4, who hip-swaggered their way through an average, yet energetic set, basically copying Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. The lead guitarist throws himself about the stage to their music, rather unnecessarily, and they generally play fairly bland, clichéd music. But, not to take away that, they certainly sound good at what they do, and were plenty tight, and the generally 90% plus indie kid crowd enjoyed it, but right now, nearly anyone can do that.

Thank God for the recently renamed Blues Explosion, previously named ‘John Spencer Blues Explosion’, then, who delivered a thrilling, crunchy, raw set of Blues, Funk and Rock music. The trio may look small in quantity, and drum kit size, but they make one hell of a funky noise that can’t help but get those in the crowd who are actually getting it to kick up one hell of a dancing flourish and leave the rest of the NME ridden kids wondering what the hell was going on. Supporting any other band, Blues Explosion would have probably easily won the title of coolest band.

Almost bad luck that they were followed by The Hives, then, who kicked off with one of the best openers recorded last year, “Abra Cadaver”, a fast paced, anthemic, snotty, punk tune starting the gig in flying colours. Most of the crowd tried to caress the new hair, and dodgy moustache of Pelle Almqvist, while the rest of the band did what they do best - provided an awesome rhythm.

Most of tonight’s set features songs off ‘Tyrannosaurus Hives’ and the biggest hits from ‘Veni Vidi Vicious’, however, some old, much welcome classics also found their place in the set. Most notably, the fantastic forgotten classic ‘Statecontrol’, which although entertained all involved, was only recognised by a few people in attendence, which Pelle noticed as during the sing-along breakdown of the song, he invited the crowd to sing, but quickly realised and said into the mic “ok, no-one here seems to know the words”, and thus came a quite tutoring for the clueless kids to follow.

That’s another thing - never in my gigging career have I seen a band member so funny. Pelle’s dry wit made me and others laugh out loud several times, as well as having enough charm to get the whole crowd to do exactly what he wanted. But what is also exciting is that he actually dares people to challenge him, both through his music in his stage banter he shows why he’s dangerous, and why this band are not to be taken lightly, or indeed classed with any other NME band. It’s a shame, really, that so many casual fans attended this gig, but it was clear The Hives have accepted who the majority of their fan base are, so they carry on as normal - playing some great songs.

'Hate To Say I Told You So', a previously notoriously rubbish live song, has been brilliantly tweaked by the band making their performance fairly flawless. Ending their set on clearly their own personal favourite “AKA I-D-I-O-T”, they looked as cool and as proud as ever, but also fairly relieved that they had ended this huge European tour of 2005.

Adam Turner-Heffer