The Dead Weather – Boston Music Room, June 23 2009.
Right. So Jack White's third musical adventure in the past 10 years is upon us, and yet again we are diverted into the land of filthy bluesrock. Although, this time around he is opting to stay behind his drum kit for the first time since his teens, and in doing so making tonight's headliners quite the deceptive little treat.
Landing somewhere between his previous outings (That'll be The White Stripes and The Raconteurs) and Black Mountain, The Dead Weather unashamedly exploits White's fondness for disguising hook-ridden pop songs as overdrive-fuelled garage rock.
Roping in fellow Raconteur Jack Lawrence on bass, sometime-QOTSA member Dean Fertita on guitar, and The Kill’s quite irresistible Allison Mosshart on vocals, White's decision to make The Dead Weather more than a past-time activity raised more than one eyebrow, and, in the critics' eyes, seemingly fell somewhere between being the birth of a new breed of supergroups and just being a side-project of a side-project.
Side-project or not, tonight's intimate North London event duly follows the previous weeks overload of big-names-in-tiny-venues, with Blur playing records shops as well as student unions, and Pixies playing, well, Shoreditch. Not that we moan about it.
They start magnificently. White, barely visible behind drums and frizzy hair, leaves the limelight to the rest of the band, who duly take charge. Mosshart's cigarette is clenched between her fingers as both hands grasp the microphone and her voice duly finds its rightful place amidst massive drums and classic guitar riffs. Her presence is deeply enigmatic, not to mention rejuvenating within a line-up ever so sporadically threatening to falter under the pressure of being (whisper it) just another blues-rock band. But thankfully, they are so much more. Their first single, Treat Me Like Your Mother, is ferocious, while the daftly titled I Cut Like A Buffalo surely must be made for festivals.
But they are certainly not without their reference points. Hang You From The Heavens steals the drum intro from Weezer's American Gigolo before melting into an, if possible, dirtier version of White Stripe's own The Hardest Button to Button.
Rushing through their debut album, with only a ''it's good to be back'' from White as the sum total of small talk between songs, The Dead Weather are rough, unpolished, uncompromising and above all, loud. An attentive and relatively unassuming crowd consisting of fans, friends and Carl Barât, is hit by a wall of drums and feedback as White thrashes out beats last heard in Zeppelin's mighty When The Levee Breaks. The Dead Weather, in that sense, is the most rock'n'roll of all of Jack White's outings. Distancing themselves from the in comparison, clean-cut and melodic Raconteurs, tonight's concert seems like a showcase of noisy blues-rock, not to mention a display of Mosshart's ability to transform a reluctant crowd into devoted fans in the space of an hour.
Here, there are no acoustic McCartney-light pop songs á la Brendan Benson, and preciously little bass-drum stomp á la Meg White, but instead an iconic voice has found its rightful place. And for tonight, that is more than enough.
Words: Brand Barstein
Setlist:
60 Feet Tall
Treat Me Like Your Mother
Bone House
You Just Can't Win
So Far From Your Weapon
Child of a Few Hours
Rocking Horse
I Cut Like a Buffalo
No Hassle Night
Will There Be Enough Water
Forever My Queen
Hang You From The Heavens
New Pony
9:19 AM | 24/06/2009
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I assume you were having a joke above: "and Are Friends Electric? for one reason or another takes its hook from Sugababes' Freak Like Me."
You must know where that song is from really........?
Posted by Malc at 9:45 AM | 24/06/2009 | Report Abuse
who is this bozo writing for the site now?? i don't think it is a joke malc...
Posted by jc at 1:24 PM | 24/06/2009 | Report Abuse
Sorry guys, a minor glitch there. Thanks for feedback.
- Brand
Posted by Brand at 4:57 PM | 24/06/2009 | Report Abuse
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