Hate To Say I Told You So Number 56 – Bursting out of a TV, your new favourite band
Hate To Say I Told You So – The Hives – Chosen by Badger – taken from ‘Your New Favourite Band’ LP (2001)
I think we have discussed Jools Holland’s TV programme ‘Later…’ on here before, a programme I have been on (in the audience, obviously). It was the annual Hootenanny New Years Eve programme as well, despite it being recorded in August in the blazing sun, it was all very festive. Most of the music sucked royally but a few bands turned up and did their stuff.
After that I kind of watched a bit of ‘Later…’ largely because you can turn the sound down when Jools is on. Now one night, I remember being away from home at the parents of my wife. They are on holiday and we are dog sitting their massive Bernese Mountain Dog ‘Frodo’. Possibly the soppiest, lickiest dog that has ever lived.
So Mrs B and I have popped down to the village which just so happens to be home to a right good boozer, we have a lovely dinner followed by a few cold drinks. Then we weave our way back to the house, walk the dog around the garden, I say garden, I mean field, which contains at least three horses, and on a good night several deer and on occasion some actual badgers. On a moonlit evening it’s a very special place indeed and one of my favourite spots in the entire world – and I’ve been to Worthing, so I’ve been around.
Frodo chases a few badgers and then ambles back to me, I finish the nocturnal nip I’ve taken with my in a hipflask and we both head back to the house, where I collapse on the sofa and switch the television on and Frodo falls asleep on the rug.
‘Later…’is on and it is quite a decent episode, we have the Beta Band doing ‘Human Being’ followed by Garbage and Macy Gray (the goodness is waning by this stage) but then the television is filled by this strange looking band dressed all in white and black suits who appear to be making a perfectly raucous racket.
Sometimes watching live music on television works, my mind is instantly thrown back to Nirvana on the Word, or Future Islands on Letterman perhaps, a performance can make a career and sell a lot of records, but more often than not, it’s forgettable. But to that list of memorable TV performances I will now add the Hives on Jools Holland.
Ladies and Gents, that night the Hives made me forget an entire evening, the food I’d eaten paled into insignificance compared to their performance, the booze I’d supped was meaningless, the stomp through a field, watching deers frolic in the trees – nothing.
They blew the place apart, even the crowd don’t quite know what they have witnessed, this Swedish band had style, verve and the singer had a swagger that I hadn’t seen in a very long time. The song they played was ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’ and as it finished I sat that open mouthed at the television, blinking every now and again. My wife could have been standing there asking me to join her in the marital bed with Keira Knightly and Alexis from Sleigh Bells, and I would have probably have not heard her. It was that good a performance.