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An immaculately attired guitar-tech (black suit ‘n’
bowler hat ‘n’ velvet-red shirt combo – couldn’t tell
you if there was a Motorhead t-shirt underneath) sits
stage-right dragging nonchalantly on a cigarette, blows
a mushrooming wisp of smoke into the Academy’s great
cavern, it strays into the harsh white spotlight shooting
from the balcony which is strikingly illuminating the
taut, wired figurine of Jack White and saving him from
melting into the primary-red carpet beneath. Then there’s
a blissful Meg, stage-left, penetrating the column of
light and taking a portion of it for herself with devil-may-care
flicks of her black flowing locks and distracted, wandering
arms.
Theoretically this could be a glimpse of any band, at
any venue, on any night, any time over the past half
a century. But really it couldn’t and it’s not. It’s
here and it’s now and it’s The White Stripes. And for
that 5,000 partially colour-coordinated people (not
to mention the thousands upon thousands that filled
the big halls preceding tonight’s UK tour climax) are
very grateful. Despite there being little at surface
level to tie it down specifically, against all presumed
odds they have become the most unique, celebrated and
definitive appraisal of rock n roll, as it exists in
the theatre of our hearts, on the planet today.
And that song’s not any old song, it’s the billowing
‘Ball & Biscuit’ from their new enamoured and to-scale
album ‘Elephant’. And while it’s hardly the best offering
on the record it’s as adequate a demonstration of what
they’re capable of as almost anything in their arsenal,
especially when Jack’s let out to play with it. He jabs
at big-lung distortion, slides manically, yelps, urges
schizophrenia from his palpitating guitar, Robert Johnson’s
nomad soul trying to set up home in his spasm-riddled
frame, as Meg pins the song down with such a playful
accuracy. It’s them in a nutshell.
‘Elephant’ isn’t even their best record, but that’s
unimportant. It’s a White Stripes record. Live it matters
even less, the songs returning to the spirit in which
they were conceived, lined up like equally sized dominos,
to be sent flying by their owner’s startling must-come-from-above
fluidity. He is a man out on his own, a soul running
wild, as capable as he’s allowed to be within reason,
jumping between microphones, guitar and organ as a veteran
of all he chooses to touch. The communication the pair
command together remains breathtaking, cementing Meg’s
part in the magic as she drifts on her own cloud, picking
his thoughts and gestures from the air and holding them
up on an equalising plinth.
Even technical difficulties, of which there are many
tonight, can’t knock him off his sway one millimetre
(hell, actually, metric may give you the wrong impression,
so 0.039 of an inch then). As a squealing ‘I Think I
Smell A Rat’ cuts abruptly under a dying guitar, Meg
keeps things ticking over instinctively as he darts
to his organ and creeps expertly from the depths with
sinister old blues cover ‘St James Infirmary Blues’.
Then with an utterly throbbing version of ‘Elephant’
highlight ‘The Hardest Button To Button’ all is forgotten.
Not that it needs to be forgiven. We’re too far away
to make out his face, but we’re sure we can hear his
eyes jerking out of their sockets.
There are too many spine-rupturingly tingling moments
to detail them all, but he’s carried in on the swell
of applause like some returning son in an epic film
opening and pushed, already at momentum, into ‘Black
Math. ‘Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground’ is shockingly
electric, their cover of ‘Jolene’ proves itself the
definitive one, his voice spitting rapture over its
every chord, they make Brendan Benson’s excellent ‘Good
To Me’ utterly their own, ‘Hotel Yorba’ is wired with
static excitement and ‘7 Nation Army’ is additionally
twangy and as unreservedly irresistible as expected.
Yeah, it’s a set built on tradition, but that’s never
your first thought. Who knows how or why exactly they’re
here. One born every generation? What we do know is
they’ve taken an old lump of rock and made it centre
of the earth again.
Relevant sites:
http://www.whitestripes.com/main.html
James Berry for Crud Magazine© 2003
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