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The Hives will be at The Vogue on May 17th. (Submitted photo)

The Hives will make their Indianapolis debut Saturday at the Vogue, but their reputation as an electrifying live act precedes them.

Since "Hate to Say I Told You So" became a hit single for the Swedish band in 2002, vocalist Howlin' Pelle Almqvist and his bandmates have been hailed as jaw-dropping showmen in the tradition of the Stooges and Rolling Stones.

Almqvist, known for having a healthy appreciation of his own talents, says he wishes he could see the Hives in action. "I'll just have to trust the witness reports," the singer says during a recent telephone interview.

Speaking from the United Kingdom near the end of a European tour, Almqvist acknowledged being less than full strength physically.

A day earlier, guitarist Nicholaus Arson -- Almqvist's brother -- made this weary entry in his online tour diary: "Fatigue is setting in on the Hives boys. I myself feel drained of all energy and spend most of my days lying down trying to eat to absorb energy for the evening show."

Regardless of offstage exhaustion, Almqvist says the band's performances don't suffer.

"When you step onstage and hear the first note, everything bad falls away," he says.

Almqvist says attending sub-par concerts as a youngster serves as his motivation to entertain.

"If you're going to spend 80 percent of your life doing something, you want it to be good," he says. "If I knew (the secret to a great performance), I would sell it."

On current album "The Black and White Album," the garage-rock Hives worked with hip-hop producer Pharrell Williams.

"It felt like we strangled ourselves down to one sound," Almqvist says of previous albums "Barely Legal" (1997), "Veni Vidi Vicious" (2000) and "Tyrannosaurus Hives" (2004). "We'd been making music in a bubble for 10 years, so we wanted to see what the rest of the world offered."

The Hives

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Where: Vogue, 6259 N. College Ave.

Tickets: $18.50. For more information, call (317) 239-5151 or visit www.ticketmaster.com