- guardian.co.uk, Sunday November 18 2001 02.32 GMT
- The Observer, Sunday November 18 2001
White Stripes Concorde 2, Brighton
The first thing to say about brother-sister Detroit duo White Stripes is that it has been some time since a band looked so defiantly, organically odd . At one point, there was a hot rumour flying around that they were not siblings at all, rather a divorced couple, which makes you wonder what sort of children they might have had. Watching their sweaty, intimate show at Brighton's Concorde 2, it's clear that, even in music-business terms, White Stripes are not your average twentysomethings. Dressed only in red, white, a touch of black, Jack and Meg Wade resemble something Andy Warhol and David Byrne might have dreamt up for an art happening.
Moreover, both remind you of movies. There's Jack on vocals and guitar, twanging away hypnotically, all raven, mussed hair and screaming paleness. He resembles one of the lost smalltown teenagers who sat beside the dead body in River's Edge. Then there's Meg, with her drums, bashing away intensely, all long, drippy pigtails and hillbilly stillness, like she might feel more at home spanking the banjo in an all-female remake of Deliverance. White Stripes's determined visual oddness sets them apart from the common herd maybe because it suggests that, uniquely for these times, they do not (will not?) exude any stale pop chumminess, any We're-Just-Like-You-Guys bonhomie (the last refuge of the talentless pop scoundrel). With White Stripes, it seems to be a case of: We're different , nothing like you at all. Stare as hard as you like, baby - this time it really is all about the music.
And what music it is. White Stripes formed in the late Nineties, but it was their third album, this year's White Blood Cells, that got them noticed. And deservedly so. Listening to White Blood Cells feels like being hypnotised into joining a sinister religious cult for the 15-track duration. Remarkably, it manages to be insanely, impertinently derivative without irritating the listener. Everywhere on the album, you're hearing The Stooges, The Pixies, Suicide, Bob Dylan, Sonic Youth, Jane's Addiction, The Kinks, The Cramps, Sonic Youth, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and pretty much everybody else of note you can think of.
And while at first you laugh and think: Get out of here, you cheeky, thieving little beggars, something about the way White Stripes mix it all up, then push it all out it out in a bluesy, garagey, noir-country roar makes you realise that something very special is happening. It's as if all the best facets of twentieth-century music have been fed into one of those car-crushing machines and White Stripes are the cube that pops out at the end. Any fool can listen to music, many a fool actually makes it, but with White Stripes you get the spooky feeling that - without bass-lines, without mincing about with computer trickery - they have actually become the music.
The other great thing about White Stripes is that they're unafraid to tell you stories. At times, their set at Brighton was less a collection of songs than it was a series of out-of-towner road movies, part Neil Diamond, part George Formby, part Willie Nelson, part Nick Cave. Naturally, they never begin or end exactly as you'd expect. With 'I'm Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman', you think you're hearing some misogynistic upstart sneering at his girlfriend ('If I held the door open for you, it would make your day'), but then you realise that the narrator is an icon of insecurity. Similarly, 'Little Room' turns out to be an essay of how success is the enemy of creativity, 'We're Gonna be Friends' is actually childhood reminiscence, while 'The Union Forever' changes from being an anti-love song ('It can't be love for there is no true love') into a musical march against materialism ('What would I like to have been? Everything you hate').
Crucially, while White Stripes are undeniably pretentious (reekingly so), they're unafraid to be a bit silly too. Their current single, 'Hotel Yorba' ('Grab your umbrella cos I'm your favourite fella') is, beneath the layer of white-trash white noise, rather like dot-to-dot, mumsy Beatles. Elsewhere, 'I Think I Can Smell A Rat' comes across like Little Richard meets Little Jimmy Osmond, while their leftfield version of 'Jolene' sounds like Rocky Horror dissolving in a garage acid bath. All this and more White Stripes pelted out, note-perfect, at the Brighton crowd, with hardly a pause for breath, and certainly very little time-wasting chitchat. In the end, I left, mystified and amused. White Stripes might not be the future of rock 'n' roll, but they are definitely a witty, original, gifted take on its past. It's our good luck that we're getting to enjoy them in the present.
White Stripes play the Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall tomorrow, Bristol Anson Rooms on Tuesday, London Astoria on Wednesday, London Forum on 6 December
